The unlikely relationship between South Africa and rain in the ICC tournament is getting deeper with each match. After rain played a spoilsport and forced South Africa to settle with one point against Zimbabwe, it again made life tough for the Proteas as they fell 33-run short of their revised target against Pakistan on Thursday at Sydney Cricket Ground. In a rain affected match, South Africa had a revised target of 142 to chase in 14 overs, but Pakistan pacers rattled South Africa batting line-up to seal the game with huge margin.
While batting first, Pakistan had a horrific start to their batting as both the openers - Babar Azam (6 off 15) and Md. Rizwan (4 off 4) - got dismissed way too early in the game. But Pakistan middle-order rose to the occasion as the likes of Md Haris (28 off 11), Iftikhar Ahmed (51 off 35), Mohammad Nawaz (28 off 22) and Shadab Khan (52 off 22) guided Pakistan to 185-9 in 1st innings.
For Proteas, Anrich Nortje picked four wickets while rest of the batters returned with one wicket each. In response, experienced batter Quinton de Kock failed miserably as he could not even add single run to the board.
Meanwhile, South African skipper Temba Bavuma (36 off 19) and Aiden Markram (20 off 14) played a decent knock in the middle, but it was not enough to help South Africa in the game. Pace spearhead Shaheen Afridi delivered his best figures in the ongoing edition of the T20 World Cup as he bagged three wickets, while Shadab Khan picked two wickets.
With that win, Pakistan registered its second win in the edition while South Africa suffered its maiden defeat in the competition. The result of the match made the qualification for the semis more complex as Proteas will be in a must-win situation against Netherlands on November 6 (Sunday) at Adelaide Oval.
Here is an updated points table of the Group 2 after Pakistan versus South Africa match.
