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January 26, 2007 (Link to Scorecard)

The third and final Test match between South Africa and Pakistan has got off to an action packed start on the opening day's play. At Newlands in Cape Town, 15 wickets fell in the day's play! The pendulum was swinging towards South Africa as they bundled out Pak for 157. But the pendulum now hangs in the centre with the tourists fighting back by picking up five South African wickets. SA closed at 131 for 5 with Ashwell Prince, the lone specialist batsman standing along with the all rounders in Boucher and Hall.

Graeme Smith won the toss today and had put Pakistan to bat first on a bowler friendly track. Three changes were made in his side with Shaun Pollock and Andre Nel rested to give way to Andrew Hall and Dale Steyn respectively. The other change was that of Herschelle Gibbs, who was serving his ban following the racial comments he had made during the first test, he was replaced with Boeta Dippenaar. The Pakistan team made the one change with Shahid Nazir taking Shoaib Akhtar's place. Pakistan could post just the 157 on the board with Ntini and Kallis capturing four wickets each. Mohammad Yousuf stamped his class in this land with a brilliant 83. He got those runs in quick time, in only 90 balls with 10 fours and a six as he was quickly falling short of partners. Yousuf was the last man out. The prolific middle order batsman had put on 60 runs for the 7th wicket in about as many balls with Mohammad Sami, whose contribution to that was just 4 runs! The Pakistani first innings lasted hardly over 43 overs!

Mohammad Asif provided the perfect start with the brand new cherry by nailing the comeback man, Boeta Dippenaar in the third ball of the innings for a duck. He went onto remove the inform Hashim Amla in his 2nd over but a solid partnership between Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis did the rescue act partially. It was Mohammad Sami who got Kallis to nick behind to end a threatening partnership to 80 runs. Kallis got 28 out of those runs. By close, Pakistan managed to take two more wickets to keep the South Africans under a check. Graeme Smith was dismissed by Shahid Nazir thanks to a stunning slip catch by Inzamam-ul-Haq in the slips. Graeme Smith had got a strokeful 64 from 79 which had 10 hits to the fence. Danish Kaneria provided the finishing touch by going through the defences of AB de Villiers with a well disguised googly. At stump on the first day, Ashwell Prince on 18 is with the night watchman, Paul Harris who had negotiated five deliveries without opening his account. South Africa have got their 131 in 39 overs which means that the ball should still be pretty hard, so the likes of Asif and Sami would be expected to be after the batsman right at the start of the second day's morning.

 

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