11.20pm And that’s all we have for you today. Join us again in a few days’ time for the second ODI, at the same venue. On behalf of Sudarshanan, Harshith and Sudeep, this is Abhimanyu signing off.
11.12pm Time for the presentation ceremony.
Shaheen Shah Afridi: “I think it’s a normal game for me and nothing special. Whatever situation just do your best and nothing more. I think we thought maybe we’ll get some help early on with the ball and there will be dew in second innings but it totally changed. I would give credit to our batsmen, they handled it well. We need experienced batting like this. Credit goes to them, they batted really well on a tough surface. [On nail biters] That always happens but we’ll try to make it not happen again. Thanks to the Faisalabad crowd. Cricket here after a long time and thank you for coming out in big numbers.”
Matthew Breetzke: “I think we were 20-30 runs short. We lost wickets in clusters. Lot of positives. Obviously Lhuan-dre is a very special player with a bright future and to have Quinton back, he batted nicely. So lot of positives. They were always favourites towards the end but proud of the bowlers how they fought well and took it to the last over. We kept believing, but unluckily it didn’t happen.”
POTM, Salman Agha: “I would have finished the game. It was on me and I would have finished the game. But yeah I think it’s a great win. I was expecting dew here but there was no dew, and without dew it was tough in the second innings, it was turning and staying low and reversing. But me and Rizwan spoke that if we bat through, we’ll win, and that partnership was important. We knew that if we have a partnership, we have enough time. We just want to respect bowlers where needed and when we need to score runs, we need to just communicate who will take charge and that’s what we do when we are batting together.”
11pm Two solid partnerships — one between the openers Ayub and Fakhar and another between Rizwan and Agha — built the back of this chase, that at some points looked to be slipping away from Pakistan. However, they hold their nerves and despite making it look much tougher than it was, win the first international match here at the Iqbal Stadium in Faisalabad in over 17 years! Shaheen Shah Afridi begins his ODI captaincy stint with a win, having played no small part himself. South Africa tried to claw their way back, but Rizwan’s wicket fell too late and even after that Hussain Talat played a neat cameo.
With the bat, South Africa’s innings started similarly to Pakistans’, with the openers blazing away before a few quick wickets slowed them down. As the innings went on, spinners found more grip and the quicks also got some reverse-swing and in the end South Africa’s total was a few runs short of what they’d have aimed for after being put in to bat.
Aman: “Hollywood got nothing on them! If there’s no drama, there’s no cricket in Pakistan! This is how we make one sided game super spicy! Way to go Pakistan!”
Bosch to Naseem Shah, 1 leg bye, Length ball on the pads, he misses the ball and it goes off his pads towards backward square. No review left for South Africa so the leg-bye does the job for Pakistan! They didn’t make it easy on themselves, and they didn’t deny the viewers the drama they always bring with them, but they have won this game to take a 1-0 lead in the series
