Duanne Olivier took his third five-wicket haul of the series as South Africa secured a first innings lead of 77 in the final Test at the Wanderers Stadium.
After being 169/5, Pakistan suffered a collapse and were bundled out for 185. Skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed (50) along with Babar Azam (49) put on 78 off only 61 balls for the sixth wicket to steady the sheep. But, Kagiso Rabada ended the partnership when Sarfaraz was caught at first slip and four balls later Olivier had Azam caught at long leg.
Addressing the press conference after the second day’s play, captain Sarfaraz said: “I think if you talk about our day, we had a chance to get to 262 runs but we didn’t get it. When me and Babar were batting, we were thinking we should play positive cricket. Unfortunately, I couldn’t score more than 50. If I’d scored 50-70 more runs, the position we’d be in would be much better.”
He also rued a few “bad shots” towards the end of the Pakistan innings.
“I think we played a couple of bad shots. I think my shot was also a bad shot, and Babar’s too. If you see the last five wickets, there were three bad shots. Mine, Babar’s and Faheem [Ashraf’s]. If we hadn’t played those shots, maybe we’d be in a much better position,” the Pakistan skipper pointed out.
“The problem of losing too many wickets quickly is one we’ve been facing for the past 10-12 innings. We had the same problem in the first Test match, where Shan [Masood] and Imam [ul-Haq] batted well, and once they got out we lost too many wickets. It was the same in Cape Town, and now the same here. It’s a problem we’re facing and we have to work on this,” he further added.
Sarfaraz also revealed that he had made a slight technical adjustment since the Centurion Test match, where he scored a pair.
“If you see my first two innings, my feet weren’t moving very much at all. My batting style hasn’t changed. So I worked on my feet movement, so thankfully I’m playing well at the moment. If you want to score here you have to play positive cricket. Because the good ball is never far away. If you see Markram or Hashim [Amla], whenever they see the bad ball they put it away. If you don’t play positive cricket, you will get out at any time,” he said.
Amidst the Pakistani batting collapse, the hosts were unable to build a position of dominance, struggling to 135/5 at stumps on Day 2 with an overall lead of 212.
“I think our bowling, especially the last 45 minutes, we weren’t up to the mark. We bowled really well overall but the last one hour we didn’t bowl well. At the moment, if you talk about our bowling attack, we are only bowling well in patches. If we bowl well consistently throughout an innings, I don’t think South Africa will score as many runs against us,” Sarfaraz concluded.
