Hard fought series goes South Africa's way

South Africa won the final test match yesterday, thus wrapping up an exciting test series. Pakistan gave them a good fight till the last ball was bowled. In a series where wickets fell frequently, it was South Africa's superior batting resilience that set them ahead of their opponent.

Prince, especially, has emerged as an effective scrapper, and has blossomed into a legitimate late middle-order batsmen. His style and success in this series, probably makes Pakistan regret in hindsight, to not give Asim Kamal a game. Both Kamal and Prince batsmen are quite similar in their approach; uncomplicated, yet technically sound players, who put a price on their wicket.

As far as the big guns go, Pakistan's celebrated middle order, showed up to the party in patches, but were unable to forge big partnerships with each other. Some observations...

1) Shoaib Akhtar was sorely missed. Too much has already been said about this! Read my thoughts, Billu.net's frustration, Teeth Maestro's reservations, and Billu.net's counterpoints.

2) Mohammad Asif was overbowled. 125 overs in 3 test matches at an average of nearly 21 overs an innings is ridiculous. Compare this to the Sami, Nazir, Rana who averaged 10-12 overs per innings each. Hopefully Asif is strong enough to battle South Africa again in the ODI series. This is too much pressure on him so early on in his career. I certainly hope he doesn't suffer a physical breakdown. But as much I hate seeing him bowl so excessively, he looked like the only one who could get a wicket. Maybe Inzamam was too hasty in treating Sami and Nazir like stock bowlers. Perhaps they deserved longer spells. I had argued along similar lines before when questioning the under use of Sajid Mahmood during the Ashes. How can bowlers improve if one doesn't bowl them? We might as well have played just Asif and Kaneria as the only bowlers, and played 2 extra batsmen, as is suggested by one of my blogging colleagues.

3) Asim Kamal should have played. Yasir Hameed, his likely replacement, was useless. Asim is the sort of fellow who can play with the tail, can rotate the strike, eat up deliveries. We saw how South Africa won their games. They waited till Asif stopped bowling, and squeezed runs out of the rest of our bowlers. However they had to be patient and focussed while tackling Asif. (Incidentally, I believe Kallis vs. Asif during this series is going to go down as one of the best battles between ball and bat in recent history) Asim Kamal would have done for us what Prince did for South Africa.

4) On the whole, Pakistan proved themselves to be a bit tougher against the shorter ball, though in all honesty, the pitches weren't that bouncy. Pakistan didn't capitulate as they did against Harmisson in England last summer. They attacked constantly, especially in the first test when they were trying to set the tone for the series.

On the whole, Pakistan should regret not beating South Africa in this series. This was the closest series between these two sides in recent times, mainly because South Africa's batting is not where it used to be. It was disappointing that the batting failed us (2nd innings in the 3rd test) when we needed it the most. The level of quality between the 2 sides was close mainly due to Mohammad Asif on one hand, and Ntini on the other. Both these bowlers stood out amongst their supporting cast. Ntini , in the end, had better and more reliable partners to work with and was not as overworked.

Its never fun to lose, but Pakistan will probably be pleased that some elements in their side are coming together really well. I hate games in which Pakistan plays pathetically, and though I'm a little angry some of the strategic decisions that Pakistan made, I am impressed that we were able to challenge the Proteas. With reinforcements for the ODI series strengthening their side, they can momentarily move past the test matches and look forward to the ODI's, in which they're traditionally a lot better in.

cross-posted at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan