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3rd Test: Australia wins Sydney Test (scorecard), South Africa won Test Series 2-1.. T20 & ODI series follows.
Current Cricket Series : South Africa vs Australia, West Indies vs New Zealand. Coming Up : India in NZ 2009.

Farhat leads Pakistan reply : 1st Castle test, Centurion. Day 3.

Filed under Pak vs WI

If you watched Indian batsmen battle against South African fast bowlers - you will know that even the Pakistani's were watch that series and now when it's their turn - they are doing much much better than what arch-rivals did some 10 days ago..

Pakistan have Imaran Farhat, Mohammad Hafeez and Yasir coming at no.1, 2 and 3. And all these three young batsmen have shown much better technique to counter genuine fast bowling. South African commentators (the people you hear if you are watching this Pak v SA series on ESPN Daniesh Kaneria celebrating.jpg

) are regularly discussing about complusive hookers Pakistan's batsmen are. 3 of them got out in the first innings, and looked like short pitch bowling will bring a few more wickets for South Africa as the match goes on...

But the fact is Pakistan batsmen are growing in confidence and I can see Mohammad Hafeez and specially Imran Farhat making some big scores in this series - if he doesn't throw again after a half century tommorrow..

Today, on Day 3, Pakistan had a job to bowl out South Africa as soon as possible, and they did it after giving away a lead of 104 runs. Shaun Pollock was again the man to hurt - as he was against Indian team - but things looked OK at the end of the day's play.

Pakistan are 103 for 2 - which means they trail only by 1 runs. another 250 runs and they will be in the drivers seat. Their bowling looks fine and with Kaneria - South Africans will always have a man to be afraid of.

Tomorrow's Game plan : Make as many as you can. and absorb as much time as you can. Pakistani bowlers need rest whereas the Centurion pitch needs to crack-up a little more.. The weather-report for remaing two days of this Pakistan vs RSA 1st test match is not very good. Centurion's supersport park is around 35 kilometers away from Johannesburg and the weather reoprt says "chance of rain"... What you should also look at is wickets are falling much quickly in this test match. This test match will always have a result and each team must play as they want to win it..!!

The Scorecard :

Pakistan v South Africa 1st test : End of Day 3 scorecard

Pakistan 1st Inn : 313 all out.	Sa 1st Inn : 417 all out
Hameed 65, Younis 68	Amla 71, Shaun Pollock 39 not out
Inzamam 42, Akmal 29	Ashwell Prince 138, 19 fours
Naved-ul-Hasan 30	Heschelle Gibbs 94, 15*4
Ntini 5 for 83 & Nel 3 for 100

Pakistan 2nd Inn : 103/2 in 33 ovs	Mohammad Asif : 28-4-89-5
Hafeez 15, Hameed 09	Naved-ul-Hasan : 17-2-92-2
Imran Farhat 41 off 88 balls, 8*4	Danish Kaneria :41-8-97-3
Younis Khan 32 of 39, 4*4
Jacques Kallis : 6-0-18-2	1st innings lead : 104

Pakistan trail by 1 runs with 8 wickets remaining