Pakistan Sports Journal

Return of Younis Khan boosted the Pakistan side - photo from web

Pakistan batting collapse continues as South Africa beats Pakistan in the first ODI by 8 wicket and take 1-0 lead in the 5 match series.

Lonwabo Tsotsobe bowled another devastating spell of 4 for 27 in his 10 overs , completely change the game in the favor of South Africa.

Return of Younis Khan resulted in a big 2^nd wickets partnership of 114 runs between opener Mohammad Hafeez and Younis Khan , that partnership sets up things nicely for the middle order to fire but no one was able to go even into the double figures except Misbah 14 and Haider 12.

140 for 1 in the 31st over and then 203 for 10 in the 49^th, after a solid platform at the top order, batsmen failed to capitalize and kept joining the famous batting collapse show from Pakistani batsmen.

Mohammad Hafeez played a beautiful knock 68 runs with the full support of Younis Khan who made crucial 54 at the comeback in international cricket. Misbah , Alam , Afridi and Razzaq , big middle order collapsed and dream of getting a big total was crashed.

Pakistani bowler who are getting almost nothing to defend so far in this tour, tried their best to restrict South Africa from reaching the small target of 204 but experience showed by South Africa as Jacques Kallis scored 66 but he retired hurt due to cramps, before him Graem Smith also got injured trying to pull the ball from Shoaib Akhtar who hit him on his hand.

Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers played handy knock of 35 and 51 who were enough to take South Africa home with 8 wickets and 10 overs to spare.

Still Pakistan doesn’t know how to solve their batting problem. Well, its better that they solve this before the World Cup and could be even better if in the next matches.

Source : Pakcricketworld.com