South Africa 82 for 3 (Markram 47*, Shahzad 2-28) track Pakistan 211 (Gulam 54, Paterson 5-61, Bosch 4-63) by 129 runs

The story of the opening session changed the moment Temba Bavuma played the ball through to debutant Bosch. He started with a looser well outside off stump. Masood, who had been forced to deal with a faultless fourth stump for the entire first hour, raised eyebrows when he chipped at it, with a thick outside edge that carried to Marco Jansen at third slip to give him a first-ball wicket .

Suddenly the good balls that kept missing edges started finding them. Paterson nipped one away to Ayub, who was uncharacteristically defensive, accumulating a careful 14 off 35 balls. It kissed the outside edge and both openers were back in the pavilion. Paterson wasn’t done as Babar Azam, returning to the side, also got a shot at well outside off-stump, his stroke revealing his lack of confidence; it was meat and drink for the ties again.

With Pakistan’s defense going haywire, Saud Shakeel went to the other extreme and looked to take every ball, but it was just six deliveries before that strategy ran out of steam. He flicked a hook through to the keeper where South Africa successfully tried to send him on his way.

It will be all the more frustrating for Pakistan after a magnificent first hour South African bowling was not rewarded. With Kagiso Rabada and Jansen nibbling it around, it was clear why Bavuma had chosen to put Pakistan in, but somehow they had found a way to avoid the two leading bowlers.

An 81-run stand between Ghulam, who scored an entertaining half-century, and Mohammad Rizwan looked to have pulled Pakistan out of the hole they were put in during the morning session. Rizwan and Ghulam had built the partnership on the other side of lunch and continued in the same direction. But with the clouds moving menacingly overhead, the unlucky Rabada was brought in for another excellent but fruitless spell. It produced the most engaging cricket of the day, with both KGs locking horns on more than one occasion; Growing increasingly frustrated with Kamran Ghulam’s stubborn resistance, Rabada came close enough to tell him, to which Ghulam responded in less than family-friendly terms to go back to the bowling alley.

With the crowd engaged, Ghulam added one to the bills bowled by Jansen, bringing up his half-century, but South Africa would not be denied. Ghulam bowled Paterson, only to get him to fine leg, with none other than Rabada standing to take the catch that sent a full SuperSport Park into a frenzy. A wicket brought more to South Africa before lunch and it showed again. Rizwan got the next Bosch over before Salman Ali Agha and Aamer Jamal set about another rebuild. With ten minutes to tea, the duo were closing in on another 50 partnership, but another South African burst would prove the knockout blow.

South Africa had wasted a couple of chances at slip outside the outside edge so Bosch found the inside edge of Jamal as he chipped on before a surprise bouncer from Paterson saw the back of Agha.

With Pakistan finished there was enough time for today’s history to be rewritten and Khurram Shahzad threatened to do just that when he halved Tony de Zorzi with perhaps the ball of the day. Constantly threatening both ends of the bat, he found Ryan Rickleton’s outside edge to reduce South Africa to 24 for 2 and wrest momentum back into the second day.