da premier bet： South Africa’s unbeaten run in Test series on the road will extend further after their victory in Dubai, which allowed them to share the spoils of this two-match rubber with Pakistan
The Report by Firdose Moonda in Dubai26-Oct-2013
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMisbah threw his wicket away and fell 12 runs short of a century•Associated Press
South Africa’s unbeaten run in Test series on the road will extend even further after their victory in Dubai, which allowed them to share the spoils of this two-match rubber with Pakistan. The last time South Africa lost a Test series abroad was in Sri Lanka in 2006. Since then, they have become the No. 1 ranked Test team and they will stay there, but their lead will be cut by four points by virtue of the drawn series.Pakistan have risen to No. 4, thanks to their victory in Abu Dhabi, but were unable to protect fortress UAE, losing in their adopted home for the first time since moving here in 2010. They went down fighting though, with Asad Shafiq notching up his highest score in Test cricket and sharing in a 197-run fifth wicket stand with Misbah-ul-Haq, which kept South Africa in the field for much longer than they would have anticipated.On the fourth evening, AB de Villiers said the team felt they were one wicket away from running through Pakistan. That dismissal came 20 minutes before tea as Misbah, who had treated South Africa’s attack with the caution of someone handling a shipment of crystal glasses, gifted Dean Elgar, the part-time spinner, his first Test wicket. In Elgar’s second over, Misbah attempted to slog him out of the park, but got a thick outside edge which Jacques Kallis collected at first slip.Smart stats
da leao： South Africa are now unbeaten over the last 12 Test series played away from home, with their last loss coming against Sri Lanka in 2006, by a margin of 2-0. Including this series, South Africa are undefeated in 13 consecutive Test series, which is the longest sequence for them. Click here for a list of the longest undefeated sequence by teams in Tests
Graeme Smith won the 11th Man-of-the-Match award of his career in this Test beating Imran Khan to claim the most awards as captain in Tests.
The fifth-wicket partnerships in this match added 535 runs – the second-highest ever in a Test. This is only the third time ever that 500 runs or more were added for the fifth wicket. The 563 runs added by West Indies and England for the fifth wicket in Port-of-Spain in 2009 is the highest.
This is only the second instance since South Africa’s return to international cricket that their spinners have taken ten or more wickets in a Test. The last such instance was against Bangladesh in Chittagong in 2003.
Imran Tahir’s 8 for 130 in this Test is his career-best match-haul, just as his 5 for 32 in the first innings is his best return for an innings.
This was AB de Villiers’ second Man-of-the-Series award as a wicketkeeper equalling Andy Flower. Only Adam Gilchrist (3 awards) has won more
The 197-run partnership between Misbah-ul-Haq and Asad Shafiq equalled Pakistan’s record for the fifth wicket in the second innings set by Javed Burki and Nasim-ul-Ghani against England at Lord’s, in 1962. The Misbah-Shafiq partnership was the seventh-highest for Pakistan in the second innings of a Test.
This was Asad Shafiq’s highest score in Tests beating the 111 he hit against South Africa at Cape Town earlier this year. Asad Shafiq has now hit four hundreds for Pakistan batting at No. 6, equalling Saleem Malik. Only Asif Iqbal has more centuries – six – for Pakistan in Tests at that position. Garry Sobers holds the overall record with eight centuries at No. 6.
Jacques Kallis had a poor all-round performance this tour, a very rare occurrence for him. Not since his debut against England in 1995, has he gone an entire series without managing a score in double digits or without taking a wicket.
Including the two Kallis took in this match, he has taken 198 catches in Tests, the second-highest by any fielder. He went ahead of Ricky Ponting who has 196. Rahul Dravid is on top of the list with 210 catches.
JP Duminy’s bowling figures of 3 for 67 in the second innings are his best in an innings in Tests and are also his best in a Test.
That ended a vigil in which Misbah had ushered Shafiq to his second century against this opposition, and the fourth of his career, and seen off the second new ball to put Pakistan in a position to frustrate South Africa even further. They had only one wicket-taking opportunity before Misbah’s lapse in concentration, when Shafiq was given out lbw in the fifth over to a Vernon Philander delivery that pitched on leg-stump and hit him on the front pad. He was on 36 at the time and reviewed with replays showing the ball would have missed leg stump.Shafiq survived and went on to play a balanced innings combining defence with attack, particularly against the spinners. His footwork against Imran Tahir and JP Duminy was excellent, typified by the shot of the day – a spank over midwicket off Tahir.Misbah was more stoic, nudging the ball into spaces and encouraging Shafiq to keep the scoreboard moving, but not too quickly. They both brought up half-centuries off 121 balls before slowing down as the second new ball came. Once comfortable against it, Shafiq pushed past his captain after lunch. He danced into the nineties with a boundary off Duminy and brought up his century with a square drive off a full and wide ball from the same bowler. Encouragingly for Pakistan, once the milestone had been reached, Shafiq kept going.Misbah will be furious that he did not do the same. Although South Africa’s attack did not lapse into the lazy short-ball showing they put on in Abu Dhabi, they seemed to be running out of ideas. After trying everything from having two short midwickets in against the spinners – between whom Shafiq threaded the ball through – to having two short covers in for the quicks, Smith turned to Elgar to buy time.Smith would probably not have imagined getting a wicket off the tactic, Elgar’s delivery was innocuous as well, but once Misbah ran out of patience, the result was a foregone conclusion. Pakistan’s tail proved pesky to remove even though they were without Zulfiqar Babar, who did not bat because of the torn webbing on his right hand.With a ball short of 10 overs remaining in the day, Shafiq, after resisting for seven hours, was stumped off JP Duminy, to give him the same number of wickets as Tahir in the innings – three.On this day in 1952 Pakistan won their first Test, beating India in Lucknow. They did not have reason to celebrate on their anniversary but they did enjoy some positive signs as they dragged the Test late into the fourth afternoon and pushed South Africa as much as they could given their first innings failing.