SA vs PAK 2024/25, SA vs PAK 2. Test Match Preview

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The attempt to give this Test series context may, ironically, have taken some away from this Test match, especially as far as South Africa is concerned. The hosts have already qualified for the World Test Championship final after beating Pakistan by two wickets in Centurion, and as such don’t necessarily have a bigger picture to play for. However, they have won eight Tests in a row at home against Pakistan and never failed to win a home series against them since the turn of the century, and in the bilateral context there is still plenty to play for.

In the days since South Africa qualified, there has been some attention to the perceived softer nature of their draw heading into the World Test Championship, one for which their coach Shukri Conrad has “no excuses”. But with no Test cricket between this Test and the WTC final, South Africa will want to storm into the final in style and extend a winning run that already stretches to six matches.

Pakistan’s WTC hopes had long since gone up in smoke, but they need to break a habit of dropping to win positions, a habit in this particular cycle. As a result, they have now lost seven of the last nine Tests, and all of the last eight in South Africa. Centurion were the closest they came to breaking that hoodoo, at one stage two wickets away from a stunning win with South Africa still 49 runs away from victory. But as has been the case with Pakistan all too often, they struggled to finish off the tail with the ball and saw another slip through their fingers.

Newlands arguably play a bit more to their strengths, lacking the expressive pace of South Africa. It’s a surface that both captains expect will take a bit more spin than the Centurion and should return to its natural characteristics after a freak Test last year against India that ended in a day and a half. Both sides are expected to field a spinner, while Pakistan’s seam and swing bowlers may find more joy, especially in the early stages of the Test before the surface flattens out. With just two Test wins in South Africa across three decades of playing here, a win here – and a series draw – will go down as their most impressive away Test series result in years.

Form guide (last five completed matches, most recent first)

South Africa: WWWWW

Pakistan: LWWLL

In the limelight

With spin likely to play a more significant role at Newlands than it did in Centurion, Keshav Maharaj returns to the side. But for all Newland’s supposed accommodation to slower bowling, the left-arm orthodox spinner has a surprisingly indifferent record in Cape Town, managing just 9 wickets in 6 matches at an average of over 52. That’s almost double his average of 30.44 in South Africa overall and Maharaj is returning from an adductor strain that ruled him out of the ODI series. Whether he can begin to reverse his Newlands record could be an intriguing plot as the Test develops.

It is not an age for openers in Test cricket, and especially not Pakistani openers. Until the last Test, they had not produced a partnership above 15 all year but offered faint glimpses of turning that around with the new pair of Saim Ayub and Shan Masood putting on 36 and 49. But neither opener managed to kick off. either innings, something Masood brought as a point of frustration in Centurion. Against the kind of emerging world-class bowling attack South Africa possess at home, runs for the first wicket are not exactly easy, but Pakistan desperately need them all.

Keep news

South Africa have made the changes after the first Test, which saw Maharaj, Wiaan Mulder and debutant fast bowler Kwena Maphaka come into the side. Opener Tony de Zorzi has a thigh strain, while fast bowling all-rounder Corbin Bosch and Dane Paterson also drop to the bench.

South Africa: Ryan Rickleton 2 Aiden Markram, 3 Wiaan Mulder (capt), 4 Tristan Stubbs 5 Temba Bavuma (capt) 6 David Bedingham, 7 Kyle Verreynne (wk), 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Keshav Maharaj 10 Kagiso Rabada 11 Kwena Maphaka

Pakistan are yet to name an eleven, unsure whether to play Noman Ali or simply settle for Salman Ali Agha as the lead spinner.

Pakistan: 1 Shan Masood (capt) 2 Saim Ayub 3 Babar Azam 4 Kamran Ghulam 5 Saud Shakeel 6 Mohammad Rizwan (wk) 7 Salman Ali Agha 8 Aamer Jamal/Noman Ali 9 Naseem Shah 10 Mohammad Abbas 11 Khurram Shahzad

Stand and conditions

“I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about the wicket,” Temba Bavuma joked during the press conference after the ultra-short Test here last year. However, there is less grass on it than the Centurion, and there is spin later in the test.

Statistics and trivia

Keshav Maharaj is seven wickets away from becoming the first South African spinner to take 200 Test wickets.

Among the current batsmen in the Pakistan side, none have really impressive records in South Africa. Babar Azam’s 275 at 34.37 makes him the most prolific, while no active Pakistani has a hundred in this country.

Quotes

“The series is still up for grabs. So as much as we have ticked off being in the final, we still want to be clinical in the series. We see two nil. Our focus, our motivation is still there, I think also as a team, as much as we won last week, we accept we weren’t at our best, betting and bowling see ourselves a lot better than we were last week.”
South African captain Temba Bavuma feels that there is still much to improve on his part

Danyal Rasool is Pakinomist’s Pakistan correspondent. @Danny61000