While the South Africans have a strong batting line, specially after the return of Hashim Amla, Pakistan suffers from its chronic problem of irresponsible batsmen who crumble like pack of cards whenever a challenge is faced.
The third ODI was terrible example of poor batting line of Pakistan. Chasing a target of 260, Pakistani top order batsmen could score only 116 for seven. It was only the two bowlers, Wahab Riaz and Sohail Tanvir, who added valuable 61 runs and taking the score to a face saving 191 - but what more can you expect from bowlers. The bowled well but batsmen always failed them.
"It's the same old story," Misbah said. "I think we need to think about our batting if we want to save the series. Our batsmen get starts but are not able to convert them into big scores, and we all have to think that 20s and 30s are not going to win matches for us."
Although Misbah is holding on good and playing well, he seems to have chosen a weak team - as he always does. Afridi is bowling well but his batting is agaion as unpredicatable as ever - coming back to pavilion with a long face.
Unless Pakistan's batting line performs, it is more than likely that the opposing camp will be able to dominate the series. Like Saeed Ajmal, they will have to be beware of Imran Tahir, whose 4-53 dismantled their ace batsmen.
Squads:
Pakistan: Misbah-ul-Haq*, Abdur Rehman, Ahmed Shehzad, Asad Shafiq, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Irfan, Nasir Jamshed, Saeed Ajmal, Sarfraz Ahmed†, Shahid Afridi, Sohaib Maqsood, Sohail Tanvir, Umar Akmal†, Umar Amin, Wahab Riaz
South Africa: AB de Villiers*†, HM Amla, H Davids, Q de Kock†, JP Duminy, F du Plessis, Imran Tahir, R McLaren, DA Miller, M Morkel, WD Parnell, RJ Peterson, VD Philander, DW Steyn, LL Tsotsobe
Umpires Ahsan Raza and SJ Davis
The match is scheduled for November 6 at Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi 15:00 local time (11:00 GMT)
If you are one of the fans located at different destination and miss the chance to visit the stadium to watch your favourite team, You can now watch the match live on your laptop or desktop computer, FREE, provided you have an internet connection, from the links given below:
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