Babar Azam was dismissed for a duck in his comeback to T20 cricket as under-strength South Africa romped to 55-run win over Pakistan in the opener of a three-match series.
Pakistan couldn’t recover from Corbin Bosch’s twin strike that included the wicket of Babar before South Africa bowled out the home team for 139 on Tuesday to the disappointment of 16,000 home fans at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.
South Africa had earlier made 194-9 after captain Donovan Ferreira lost the toss and was asked to bat first. Opening batter Reeza Hendricks scored 60 off 40 balls and George Linde added 36 off 22 balls.
Babar, who last played a T20 in December 2024 against South Africa, lasted only two balls and offered a tame catch to Hendricks in the covers inside the powerplay.
Pakistan had recalled Babar at No. 3 for the series after giving Fakhar Zaman rest to gear up for next month’s one-day international series against the Proteas.
Babar was cheered loudly by the capacity crowd as he walked out to bat, needing nine runs to break Rohit Sharma’s all-time record of 4,231 runs in T20 internationals. But there was pin-drop silence in the stands as Babar couldn’t clear Hendricks in the covers and walked back.
Pakistan’s chase never gained momentum after it lost two wickets inside the first six overs. Saim Ayub should have been dismissed without scoring in Nandre Burger’s first over, but was dropped by Matthew Breetzke at third before the left-hander top-scored with 37 off 28 balls.
Pakistan could have been bowled out more cheaply, but Mohammad Nawaz made 36 off 20 balls and was one of the four batters to reach double figures.
Bosch claimed two more wickets in his return spell to finish with 4-14 with Linde claiming 3-31.
“It was a collective effort,” said Ferreira, captaining the Proteas in the absence of the injured David Miller. “We had a good powerplay batting effort, and Linde finished it well. We kept it simple with the ball and wanted to keep it nice and simple.
“Reeza held it together nicely for us, which allowed George licence to explode, and he [Bosch] had really good energy on the ball,” Ferreira added. “He usually goes for the yorkers, but he hit the deck today and got something out of the deck. Four wickets is an amazing achievement.”
Unlike Babar, Quinton de Kock was aggressive in his return to the sport’s shortest format since last playing at the T20 World Cup.
Hendricks and de Kock provided a blazing start of 44 runs off 23 balls, with de Kock smashing five boundaries in his 23 before getting caught at backward point in Ayub’s first over.
Debutant Tony de Zorzi kept the momentum going with his 33 off 16 balls as South Africa cruised to 74-1 in the first six overs with Shaheen Shah Afridi (1-45) consistently missing his lengths and Naseem Shah (1-34) off target in his first T20 in 11 months.
The Proteas continued to push the scoring rate and were 111-3 by the halfway mark before Pakistan spinners pulled them back. Left-arm spinner Nawaz picked up 3-26 and Ayub ended up with 2-31, but Hendricks kept one end intact before falling to leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed (1-42) in the 18th over.
Linde showed some late intent and smacked Afridi for 18 runs in the 17th over that included a life when Babar dropped a sitter at mid-on that eventually rolled over the boundary.
“We just need to bat properly,” Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha said. “We are missing partnerships [and] if we have partnerships we can chase such totals. We [also] didn’t bowl well in the powerplay. Bowling top of off stump would’ve been good enough, but the positive is how we pulled it back later.”
Lahore will host the remaining two games (Friday and Saturday) before the teams play a three-match ODI series at Faisalabad from November 4-8.
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