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CENTURION, South Africa (AFP) – An inexperienced Pakistan pace bowling line-up had South Africa in trouble before AB de Villiers steered the hosts to a respectable total on the first day of the third and final Test at SuperSport Park on Friday.<\/p>\n
De Villiers made an unbeaten 98 as South Africa reached 334 for six.<\/p>\n
De Villiers and Hashim Amla, who made a sparkling 92, were the only top-order batsmen to play significant innings against a three-man Pakistan bowling attack with only two Test caps between them going into the game.<\/p>\n
Rahat Ali and Ehsan Adil, neither of whom had taken a wicket in Test cricket before, were responsible for the first five dismissals as South Africa stumbled to 196 for five.<\/p>\n
Left-arm Rahat, playing in his second Test, took three for 95, while new cap Adil, 19, took two for 54.<\/p>\n
Amla looked set for his 20th Test century before edging a drive against a wide delivery from Rahat to be caught behind by wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed.<\/p>\n
He struck 13 fours in a 128-ball innings and shared partnerships of 69 for the third wicket with Faf du Plessis (29) and 79 for the fourth wicket with De Villiers.<\/p>\n
With the South Africans missing star all-rounder Jacques Kallis because of a calf injury, De Villiers took over responsibility for batting out the day.<\/p>\n
He shared a sixth wicket stand of 52 with Robin Peterson, who made 28 before being run out, and an unbeaten seventh-wicket partnership of 86 with Vernon Philander (45 not out).<\/p>\n
De Villiers faced 179 balls and hit 13 fours.<\/p>\n
“Although the pressure of having to win the series is off us, the way we played today in testing conditions was a testament to how much we want to win the game,” said Amla.<\/p>\n
“We could easily have thrown in the towel.”<\/p>\n
Amla said there was enough movement off the pitch and variable bounce to make batting difficult.<\/p>\n
“You can’t get into a rhythm,” he said.<\/p>\n
Although they produced wicket-taking deliveries, both Rahat and Adil were inconsistent and sent down enough loose deliveries for South Africa to maintain a scoring rate of close to four runs an over for much of the day.<\/p>\n
Off-spinner Saeed Ajmal, the only experienced bowler in the side, was easily the most economical, conceding 70 runs in 26 overs.<\/p>\n
Pakistan finished the day a bowler short after Adil limped off with what appeared to be a hamstring strain after sending down just one delivery with the second new ball.<\/p>\n
Bowling coach Mohammad Akram said it was not certain whether he would be fit to bowl on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Akram added that the fielding of such an inexperienced pace attack was forced on Pakistan.<\/p>\n
“We had no choice. We have had a lot of injuries. Junaid (Khan) and Umar Gul would have been our first choices but they are injured,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Overall the bowling was okay against the number one side.”<\/p>\n
The injury to Kallis meant a reshuffle to the South African team. He was replaced by fast-medium bowler Kyle Abbott, 25, who earned his first cap after being called into the squad as cover earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
Abbott topped the wicket-takers in the domestic first-class competition, taking 49 wickets for the Dolphins at an average of 15.36.<\/p>\n
It was the first time this season that South Africa had gone into a Test match without seven specialist batsmen.<\/p>\n
South Africa, who had already clinched the series by winning the first two Tests, had one other injury-enforced change, with Rory Kleinveldt replacing fellow fast bowler Morne Morkel.<\/p>\n
Pakistan made three changes, with Imran Farhat replacing opening batsman Nasir Jamshed, while Rahat and Adil came in for Umar Gul and Tanvir Ahmed.<\/p>\n
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AB de Villiers plays a shot against Pakistan in Centurion on February 22, 2013. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}