Proteas have a shocker

Dubai - Pakistan surged back into the first Test against the Proteas with a superb display against stunned opponents at the sparsely populated International Stadium here on Saturday.

South Africa’s dominant performance on the first day was a distant memory as the teams left the field yesterday evening. From the mountain-top of 311/3 overnight, the Proteas collapsed in a heap to be dismissed for 380 shortly after lunch, losing their last seven wickets for 69 runs. By the close, Pakistan had reached 144/2 in their reply, 236 runs in arrears.

To make South Africa’s batting woes worse, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel sprayed the ball around in their opening spells to such an extent that Pakistan openers Mohammad Hafeez and Taufeeq Umer helped themselves to 60 runs in the first nine overs.

At that stage, South Africa were on the slippery slope to self-destruction and skipper Graeme Smith desperately needed to get some control back into his team’s game. He got it almost immediately – after what must have been a stern “debriefing” during the drinks break – when he introduced Jacques Kallis and Paul Harris into the attack.

The run-rate came down immediately, to such an extent that Pakistan’s second 60 required another 33 overs as the effervescent Hafeez, in particular, was pinned down. Specialist spinner Johan Botha replaced Kallis and continued the good work as the source of easy Pakistani runs dried up.

Nevertheless, Pakistan went into tea on 88 without loss, having won the first two sessions convincingly. But, as the final session began, the two openers betrayed signs of frustration as only six runs came in the first 10 overs. This eventually led to the dismissal of Hafeez.

Having reached an impressive 50 in only 58 balls, the aggressive right-hander skipped down the pitch to Harris but then suffered some indecision before scuffing it tamely to Smith at mid-on.

Five overs later, Umer was trapped lbw on “Nelson” by Morne Morkel, whose second spell was a huge improvement on his first.

The remaining 16 overs continued the sequence of grinding cricket as Younis Khan and Azhar Ali seemed content to play out time, scoring at two to the over.

Earlier, South Africa were brutally brought down to earth by Umar Gul who captured the first three wickets to fall, in the space of 20 balls at a cost of only 11 runs. First he got rid of Paul Harris, who edged a back-foot punch to second slip, then he bowled AB de Villiers with the delivery of the day, the ball jagging back sharply off a good length to just clip the off-stump.

Ashwell Prince was the next to go, trapped plumb leg before on the crease.

There was to be no recovery, with Pakistan’s spinners also getting in on the act. Left-arm spinner Abdul Rehman led the way with three scalps while Saeed Ajmal, whose doosras always looked like doing damage, got the other two.

South Africa’s coach, Corrie van Zyl, was understandably disappointed. “They did bowl well, and the ball did nip around a bit more, but I felt our intensity could have been a lot better. As a result we’ve opened the back door for them.”

He wasn’t too thrilled with South Africa’s opening salvo with the ball either. “If you think about how well we played in all three sessions on Friday, the first two sessions today were almost exactly the opposite. But we bounced back nicely after tea; we bowled really well and brought the run rate back down.”

Pakistan’s bowling hero, Gul, said the team management felt that on Friday they had given South Africa 30 to 40 runs too many. “So we decided to bowl more wicket to wicket and starve them of runs.”

Asked whether the delivery that bowled De Villiers was one of his best, Gul smiled: “It’s my secret delivery. I learned it a few days ago.” - Weekend Argus