SA vs PAK 2024/25, South Africa vs Pakistan 1st Test, Day 1, Centurion Match Report, December 26 – 30, 2024

South Africa 82 for 3 (Markram 47*, Shahzad 2-28) trail Pakistan 211 (Gulam 54, Paterson 5-61, Bosch 4-63) by 129 runs

The story of the opening session changed the moment Temba Bavuma through the ball to debutant Bosch. He began with a loosener well outside off stump. Masood, who had been forced to deal with an unerring fourth stump all of the first hour, had his eyes light up as he slashed at it, with a thick outside edge carrying to Marco Jansen at third slip to give him a first-ball wicket.

All of a sudden, the good balls that kept missing edges started to find them. Paterson nipped one away to Ayub, who was uncharacteristically defensive, accumulating a painstaking 14 off 35 balls. It kissed the outside edge, and both openers were back in the pavilion. Paterson wasn’t done, because Babar Azam, returning to the side, also had a prod at one well outside off stump, the tentativeness of his stroke revealing his lack of confidence; it was meat and drink for the slips again.

With Pakistani defenses going haywire, Saud Shakeel went for the other extreme, looking to take every ball on, but it was just six deliveries before that strategy ran out of road. He gloved a hook through to the keeper, with South Africa successfully reviewing to send him on his way.

It will be all the more frustrating for Pakistan after a magnificent first hour of South African bowling went unrewarded. With Kagiso Rabada and Jansen nipping it around, it was obvious why Bavuma had opted to put Pakistan in, but somehow, they had gritted out a way to see off the two leading bowlers.

An 81-run stand between Ghulam, who scored an entertaining half-century, and Mohammad Rizwan looked to have dragged Pakistan out of the hole they were put in during the morning session. Rizwan and Ghulam had been building up the partnership the other side of lunch, and continued in similar vein. But with the clouds menacingly moving right overhead, the luckless Rabada was brought in for another excellent but fruitless spell. It produced the most engaging cricket of the day, with both KGs locking horns on more than one occasion; Rabada grew increasingly frustrated with Kamran Ghulam’s stubborn resistance and got close enough to tell him, with Ghulam responding in less than family-friendly terms to go back to the bowling crease.

With the crowd engaged, Ghulam edged one to the slips that Jansen shelled, and brought up his half-century, but South Africa would not be denied. Ghulam slogged Paterson, only to top-edge him to fine leg, where none other than Rabada stood to take the catch that sent a full SuperSport Park into a frenzy.
One wicket brought more for South Africa before lunch, and so it proved again. Rizwan nicked off in the next Bosch over before Salman Ali Agha and Aamer Jamal set about another rebuild. With ten minutes to tea, the duo was closing in on another 50-partnership, but one more South African burst would prove the knockout blow.

South Africa had put down a couple of chances in the slips off the outside edge, so Bosch found the inside edge of Jamal as he chopped on, before a surprise bouncer from Paterson saw the back of Agha.

Once Pakistan had wrapped up, there was enough time for the story of the day to be rewritten, and Khurram Shahzad threatened to do precisely that when he cut Tony de Zorzi in half with perhaps the ball of the day. Constantly threatening both edges of the bat, he found Ryan Rickleton’s outside edge to reduce South Africa to 24 for 2, and wrest momentum back to take into the second day.