Pakistan looked home and dry at tea on day three. They were 259 ahead, six wickets still tucked away, and the pitch at Kingsmead was getting trickier by the hour. Forty-five frantic minutes later they had fallen in a heap, losing 6 for 17 and setting South Africa 277 – not huge, but suddenly believable.
“We put ourselves in this situation,” head coach Azhar Mahmood told reporters. “We were 150 for 4, and then lost 6 for 17. No one is to blame but our shot selection and decision-making.”
Key numbers first: Pakistan 264 and 192; South Africa 180 and 29 for 2 overnight. The hosts still need 248 on a surface offering variable bounce and the odd puff of turn. Pakistan, meanwhile, must shake off another bout of the collapses – a problem that has dogged them all tour.
“It’s simple. If you lose 6 for 17, that’s not ideal,” Mahmood said. “The pitch allowed the ball to break but the pitch didn’t get anyone out. Our shot selection was not good. This is something we need to improve. If we’re going to play on these pitches, we have to have the patience to bat on them.”
Patience, or lack of it, was the story of the innings. Abdullah Shafique and Babar Azam both made breezy 40s, ticking the score along without ever quite convincing you they were in for the long haul. When both perished, Saud Shakeel became the obvious anchor. He was 38, untroubled, tea three balls away, yet chose to take on Senuran Muthusamy and holed out to square leg.
“You understand in Test cricket when you’re vulnerable, and it’s often at the end of sessions,” Mahmood explained. “Saud Shakeel played that expansive lofted shot just before tea. It was unnecessary to put that pressure on himself at that stage.”
The head coach’s mood hardly improved once the interval ended. Mohammad Rizwan poked the first ball he faced straight to slip; the tail, entrusted with a brief counter-attack, folded. “We sent in Shaheen [Shah Afridi] to up the ante, but the other batters didn’t have to play the same high-risk shots,” Mahmood added. “Even if we had added 25-30 runs when we sent Shaheen in, that would have been hugely advantageous to us.”
Collapses are not a one-off. On day one Pakistan slipped from 199 for 2 to 199 for 5 either side of tea. Against England last month they lost seven for 50 on another worn surface. The pattern worries team management because the conditions, by Mahmood’s own admission, are demanding rather than diabolical.
“Against England, we played on a used pitch, and then it spun a lot versus West Indies,” he said. “But on this pitch, if you bat well, it gets easier. Because the pitch is slow, it’s hard for a newcomer to get set. In the first innings, we had starts, but we couldn’t convert 50s to 100s.”
That inability to kick on has left Pakistan’s bowling unit, already missing the injured Naseem Shah, carrying extra load. The new-ball pair of Afridi and Hasan Ali struck early – Aiden Markram feathering an outswinger, Dean Elgar fenced to second slip – but Ryan Rickelton and Tony de Zorzi looked composed in the last half-hour.
South Africa will start day four on 29 for 2, chasing a number that is neither fish nor fowl: tricky, not crippling. Kingsmead’s history offers encouragement for both camps – the surface tends to break up late, yet fourth-innings hundreds have been scored here.
Pakistan, for now, cling to the old truism that one good spell wins a Test. The bowlers have 248 runs to play with, a ball that is still relatively hard, and a fresh start in the morning. But they know the real damage was done with the bat.
“We made those mistakes and we will have a look at that in the future,” Mahmood concluded, the frustration hard to hide. How quickly his batters learn may decide not just this match but the tone of the series.
