South Africa defeated Pakistan. (Photo- PTI)
The first match of the three-match T20 series between Pakistan and South Africa was played at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. In this match, the South African team was successful in winning in a one-sided manner. With this, South Africa took a 1-0 lead in the series. Pakistan team proved to be a complete flop in this match. First the bowlers spent a lot of runs and then the batsmen disappointed. Babar Azam, who returned to the T20 team, also could not open his account.
Pakistan won the toss and decided to bowl first, but South Africa proved it wrong. Batting first, Africa scored 194 runs at the loss of 9 wickets in 20 overs. During this, opener Reeza Hendricks played an explosive inning of 60 runs in 40 balls. Which included 5 fours and 1 six. Whereas, George Linde scored 36 runs on 22 balls. Apart from these, Tony De Georgi also scored 33 runs in 16 balls. Quinton de Kock also contributed 23 runs.
On the other hand, for Pakistan, Mohammad Nawaz took maximum 3 wickets and Sam Ayub took 2 wickets. Apart from these two bowlers, the economy of all the bowlers was more than 10. Shaheen Shah Afridi spent 45 runs in 4 overs, Naseem Shah spent 34 runs in 3 overs and Abrar Ahmed spent 42 runs in 4 overs.
In response to the target of 195 runs, Pakistan team could bat only 18.1 overs and were all out after scoring 139 runs. During this, Sam Ayub scored the maximum 37 runs and Mohammad Nawaz scored 36 runs. Apart from these, no batsman could touch the 30 run mark. 7 batsmen could not even reach double figures. Due to which Pakistan played a total of 55 dot balls during this innings, which became a major reason for the defeat.
