Dale Steyn’s career-best bowling figures propelled South Africa to a comprehensive 211-run victory over Pakistan on day four of the first test at the Wanderers on Monday.
Having set Pakistan an improbable 480-run victory target, South Africa bowled them out for 268 in their second innings, the new ball doing the trick as the visitors lost their final six wickets for 59 runs before the lunch break.
Steyn picked up five second innings wickets to finish with 11 for 60, his fifth 10-wicket haul which also earned him the man-of-the-match award.
In a match of records, South African wicketkeeper AB de Villiers equalled Englishman Jack Russell’s world best of 11 dismissals in a test that came in the same ground in 1995.
Resuming on 183-4, Pakistan had added 26 runs to their total in the morning session before the first wicket fell.
Steyn managed to get a delivery to nip away from Asad Shafiq and the edge was pouched low down by Jacques Kallis at second slip. It brought to an end a fine innings of 56 in which Shafiq kept the South African pace attack at bay for 168 balls.
Shafiq and Misbah-ul-Haq had added 127 for the fifth-wicket, bettering the previous record against South Africa of 107 between the same two batsmen in Abu Dhabi in the 2010/11 season.
Misbah fell in Steyn’s next over to a delivery that pitched on off-stump, moved away and caught the edge of the bat for a simple chance to de Villiers. He went for a well-constructed 64.
Sarfraz Ahmed (six) tried to leave a Vernon Philander delivery but only succeeded in getting an inside edge onto the stumps.
Umar Gul (23) and Saeed Ajmal (11) hit some lusty blows but it was only a matter of time before they succumbed, the latter gloving a ball to de Villiers as he tried evading a Morne Morkel bouncer.
Junaid Khan was bowled by Morkel off a no-ball, the second time in this match that a South African over-stepped when picking up a wicket after Vernon Philander did likewise earlier in the innings.
Gul became Steyn’s next victim when he played a wild swish at a short ball and was caught by de Villiers. It was originally given not out, but overturned by the third umpire on review.
Steyn trapped Junaid Khan leg before for nine, capping a magnificent display of fast bowling that Pakistan will somehow have to counter in the next two test matches in Cape Town (Feb 14-18) and Centurion (Feb 22-26).
