Hasan leads PAK to first series win over SA since 2003

Rawalpindi (AFP): Medium-pacer Hasan Ali took a maiden ten-wicket haul to help Pakistan (PAK) win their first series against South Africa (SA) since 2003 with a 95-run victory in the second Test on the fifth and final day in Rawalpindi on Monday.

Hasan finished with 5-60 to record his best match figures of 11-114 and help dismiss SA – who were set a daunting 370 to chase – for 274 before the tea break. Hasan’s new-ball partner Shaheen Shah Afridi finished with 4-51, while spinner Yasir Shah took the last wicket to spark jubilation among the PAK players.

Opener Aiden Markram scored a fighting 108 and Temba Bavuma 61. They put on a 106-run stand for the fourth wicket to give PAK a scare.

Markram took a single off the last ball before lunch as SA reached the break on 219-3, needing just 151 for a win with seven wickets in hand.

However, Hasan ripped through the tourists’ batting order, which lost seven wickets for just 33 runs with the second new ball.

Hasan struck with the second over of the new ball to end Markram’s resistance by getting the opener caught in the slip and end his 335-minute fight. Markram’s fifth Test century – the first outside SA – included 13 boundaries and three sixes.

Next ball, Hasan had Quinton de Kock caught in the slip for nought, ending the SA skipper’s miserable series with just 46 runs.

Hasan dismissed George Linde for four to record his third five-wicket haul as he improved upon his previous best match figures of 7-83 against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi in 2018.

In the morning, both teams were involved in a keen battle for victory as SA resumed on 127-1, knowing the best chase at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium in ten previous Tests was the 200 scored by Sri Lanka in 2000.

SA saw vd de Dussen bowled off a beautiful inswinger by Hasan off the third ball of the day, while Francois du Plessis was leg-before to the same bowler in the fifth over of the morning.

It capped a sub-par series for the experienced du Plessis who managed just 55 in four innings.

This is PAK’s only second Test series win over SA in 12 attempts, having lost eight and drawn three. PAK last beat SA 1-0 in a two-match series at home in 2003.

PAK won the first Test by seven wickets in Karachi.

The series against SA– who were touring PAK for the first time in 14 years – is the biggest hosted by the home side since a deadly 2009 militant attack on Sri Lanka’s squad in Lahore halted international tours.

The series win also lifts PAK to fifth in international Test rankings – the first time they have placed in the top five since January 2017. SA are pushed to sixth from fifth.

The two teams will now play three Twenty20 internationals on 11, 13 and 14 February, all in Lahore.