Captain Sarfraz Ahmed has blamed three bad shots for Pakistan’s batting collapse during day two of the third and final Test against South Africa in Johannesburg.
Speaking at the press conference, the Pakistani skipper admitted that he and the other batsmen got out by playing bad shots.
Sarfraz scored 50 off 40 balls and Babar Azam played some thrilling strokes in putting on 78 off 61 balls for the sixth wicket but both were out within the space of five balls. Sarfraz played one cut shot too many and was caught at first slip off Kagiso Rabada before Babar Azam hooked Duanne Olivier to long leg.
Faheem Ashraf got into a tangle trying to play a pull shot and spliced a simple catch to short leg.
“I blame three bad shots, me, Babar and Faheem for the collapse,” Sarfraz said. “I worked on my batting and I saw the result of it. In South Africa, you have to be careful while batting.”
The Pakistani skipper hailed Proteas batsman Hashim Amla and Aiden Markram and said they are batting excellently. “I think if you talk about our day, we had a chance to get to 262 runs but we didn’t get it,” Sarfraz said. “When me and Babar were batting, we were thinking we should play positive cricket. Unfortunately, I couldn’t score more than 50. If I had scored 50-70 more runs, the position we’d be in would be much better.”
He added that the Pakistani bowlers have the ability to bowl out South Africa and that there is still a chance to win the match.
South Africa are 135-5 at stumps on day two of the third Test after bowling out Pakistan for 185 runs in their first innings. They have an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match Test series.
