South Africa 234 for 9 (Amla 81) beat Pakistan 167 (Misbah 55, McLaren 4-19) by 67 runs
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A taxi driver in Birmingham has bought a ticket to watch Pakistan every
time they played in the city for the last 30 years, except this time. He
simply did not have the confidence in their batting to bother. It turns
out he was right.
South Africa lived to fight another day in the Champions Trophy as their
bowlers, woeful against India but wolfish against an fragile line-up,
defended a barely-par total. In the absence of Dale Steyn and Morne
Morkel, Lonwabo Tsotsobe led the pack with maturity while debutant Chris
Morris added energy and Ryan McLaren backed them up at the death.
Misbah-ul-Haq was again Pakistan's lone ranger and again he could not
take them over the line. He lacked support from everyone except Nasir
Jamshed. By contrast, South Africa's anchor, Hashim Amla, enjoyed small
contributions throughout the middle order.
In an almost exact replica to the England-Australia match that was
played here on Saturday, Amla's 81 was as valuable as Ian Bell's 91 but
it may never have swelled to that had Pakistan held on to an early
chance. Amla was on 7 when he slashed at a short, wide delivery off
Mohammad Irfan and presented a tough but takeable catch to Umar Amin at
point. Amin dived, got fingers to it and then he watched it slip
through. It was a moment that taught him a tough lesson: don't' drop
Amla.
Over the last year, England, Australia and New Zealand have paid for
that mistake. Pakistan may do so twice. They put Amla down at the
Wanderers in March, he went on to score 122. Both then and now, South
Africa came out winners.
Conditions could not have been more different to Johannesburg than they
were in Birmingham. There it was a belter of a track on which runs
rained. Here it was a sluggish surface that did not facilitate a free
flow. Both teams started slowly, Pakistan ended that way too.
Mohammed Irfan and Junaid Khan kept South Africa to 36 runs in the first
10 overs and did not take wicket, although they could have had Amla.
Morris, Tsotsobe and McLaren restricted Pakistan to 18 for 2 in the same
period, which immediately made Pakistan's task more difficult.
By the 19th over, their required run rate had already ballooned to six
an over and considering no one had scored at that rate at any stage of
the game, it seemed unlikely Pakistan would. But Misbah marshalled
proceedings in his usual, calm way. He saw off the good balls - and
there were many which South Africa bowled - and waited to take advantage
of anything that was occasionally tossed up or slightly wide.
AB de Villiers did a fine job of rotating his bowlers and was spoilt for
choice with three seamers and three spinners. He used JP Duminy before
Robin Peterson and it paid off, when Shoaib Malik was bowled by a
delivery that rolled back onto his stumps, and brought Tsotsobe back at
exactly the right time, after a first spell of five overs for six runs.
The left-armer used his variations well and bowled Jamshed an offcutter
that he fed back. The tall man got down low and plucked it in his follow
through. Misbah knew he had to battle on his own.
After 49 boundary-less deliveries, he cleared Morris over mid-on to
release pressure but he was soon stranded. McLaren removed Umar Amin
when he tried to go big and was caught at cover and Kamran Akmal, who
was caught at point, in the same over and Pakistan's chase seemed over.
Misbah responded with a six over long-on and then his fight was also
extinguished. He picked out midwicket from a Tsotsobe slower ball and
left it to the tail to have some fun at the end. Instead, it was McLaren
who helped himself to four wickets for five runs to ensure South Africa
rounded up a convincing win.
They would not have been confident of that at the halfway stage. With 51
runs scored and six wickets falling in the last 10 overs of their
innings, it seemed they had squandered the chance to build on a
well-laid platform.
Even though Pakistan's three spinners cost them only 107 runs in 26
overs, Amla's 69-run stand with Faf du Plessis and the 41 put on by de
Villiers and Duminy helped negate the collapse later on. South Africa
will remain concerned about the four run-outs but showed significant
improvement and will eye the last four.
Pakistan now look at the semi-finals from a greater distance and,
although they are not out of the competition, they need West Indies to
beat India on Tuesday. If Pakistan then beat India and West Indies
triumph over South Africa in the final group games, three teams would
have won one match and net run-rate will come into the equation.
Firdose Moonda is ESPNcricinfo's South Africa correspondent
Feeds: Firdose Moonda
© ESPN EMEA Ltd.
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