South African fast bowlers, especially Dane Paterson and debutant Corbin Bosch, dominated the entire Pakistani batting line-up on the opening day of the ‘Boxing Day’ Test match at the SuperSport Park in Centurion. Aiden Markram also grabbed the limelight with the bat later in the day as the Proteas seized full dominancy over the visitors by stumps on Day 1.
Pakistan openers Shan Masood and Saim Ayub survived South Africa’s opening pace attack by batting out the first 14 overs of the day, marking 36 important runs for their team. However, after seeing off the Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen’s new ball threat, Masood nicked one towards slips off Proteas debutant Corbin Bosch to hand hosts their first breakthrough of the day.
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Dane Paterson, operating from the other end, also soon dismissed Saim Ayub and number three Babar Azam in quick succession as Pakistan’s top-order crashed to 41-3 in 17.2 overs.
In an extended spell, Bosch earned his second wicket of the innings in the form of Saud Shakeel for just 14 as the visitors lost their fourth wicket in the space of four overs after their 36-run opening stand.
Kamran Ghulam at number four punched out a fighting 54 from just 71 balls and shared a counterattacking 81-run partnership with white-ball skipper and wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan. Ghulam’s energetic and boundary-laden effort attained some respectability for the stable Pakistan innings until he lost his wicket by becoming Paterson’s third wicket of the day.
Tails up at the halfway stage of the day, South African pacers Paterson and Corbin Bosch mopped up the remainder of Pakistan’s line-up at just 211 from 57.3 overs. Paterson bagged his second Test five-fer and his career-best spell with figures of 5-61, while Bosch had a debut to remember with figures of 4-63.
South Africa lost opener, Tony de Zorzi, with an absolute peach from Khurram Shahzad earlier in the innings. The right-arm fast bowler also had Ryan Rickelon nick one towards Mohammad Rizwan for just eight as the hosts lost its second wicket for just 24 on the board.
Steadying South Africa’s sinking ship, senior opening batter Aiden Markram counterattacked with a swift 47* from 67 balls, punching out nine boundaries in the process to take his team to 82 from 22 overs until stumps.
Along the way, Markram lost Tristan Stubbs to a jaffa from Mohammad Abbas as the Proteas will now resume their first innings on Day 2 by trailing another 129 runs away from Pakistan.
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