Proteas speedster Duanne Olivier sparked South Africa’s revival on Day Two of the first Test against Pakistan in Centurion yesterday.
With the visitors having bowled out their hosts for 223 - a slender lead of 42 - in reply to their first innings total of 181, Pakistan cruised in their second innings at 101/1.
And having already bagged the earlier wicket of Fakhar Zaman, caught at long leg by Kagiso Rabada for 12, Olivier then took the wickets of Imam ul-Haq (57) and Azhar Ali (0) in quick succession to take the visitors to 103/3.
Those two wickets signalled the start of Pakistan’s downfall.
Ul-Haq, the nephew of Pakistan legend Inzamam, should never have gotten to his half-century in the first place and should have been back in the hut in the fifth over of Pakistan’s innings already.
But he was dropped by Hashim Amla off the bowling of Dale Steyn when he was on 15.
Steyn finally got his first wicket of the day when he had Asad Shafiq (6) caught behind.
His new-ball partner Kagiso Rabada then got in on the action when he knocked over the off stump of Babar Azam, also for six.
At the other end of the pitch, Shan Masood continued to fight hard for the visitors, but he could only watch in horror as wickets continued to tumble around him.
It was the SA bowlers who had their tails up and Rabada then had Sarfraz Ahmed caught in the slips by captain Faf du Plessis for a duck.
The turnaround was complete with Pakistan at 142/6 and all that was left to do was for SA was to clean up the visitors’ tail.
Rabada (3/47) then struck again with a ball that kept low to send the bails of Mohammad Amir (12) flying at 158/7.
Olivier, who bagged 6/37 in the first innings, didn’t want to miss out and then got his 10th wicket of the match when he had Yasir Shah caught behind for a golden duck (159/8).
Masood’s resistance finally crumbled with his score on 65 when he was caught at mid-wicket off a Steyn short ball before Olivier (5/59) wrapped up Pakistan’s innings for 190 when he removed Shaheen Afridi (4), caught at short leg by Aiden Markram. That left Olivier with match figures of 11/96.
Stumps were called after that wicket, leaving South Africa with a winning target of 149 today.
Earlier in the day, SA resumed their first innings after finishing Day One on 125/5.
Nightwatchman Dale Steyn (23) didn’t stick around for too long in the morning session and was back in the hut after being caught behind off the bowling of Amir (4/62).
Steyn’s wicket brought Quinton de Kock to the crease.
After his recent success in the Mzansi Super League, De Kock was still in big-hitting mode and smacked 45 runs off 53 balls before he became Amir’s fourth scalp - spooning a slower ball to Fakhar Zaman in the covers.
Together with Temba Bavuma (53), they added some valuable seventh-wicket runs to the back-end of the Proteas innings and a 19-run cameo from Rabada took the hosts to 223 all out.