Leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed flummoxed inexperienced batters of South Africa with career-best 4-27 and led Pakistan to series-clinching seven-wicket victory in the third and final ODI on Saturday.
South Africa, which finally won its first toss on the tour of Pakistan after losing seven-in-a-row across formats, was bowled out for 143 in 37.5 overs, losing its last eight wickets for just 37 runs.
Opening batter Saim Ayub then hit a belligerent 77 with 11 fours and a six that carried Pakistan to 144-3 in just 25.1 overs for a 2-1 victory in the series.
Pakistan won the first game narrowly by two wickets and South Africa bounced back with the help of Quinton de Kock’s unbeaten century to win the second game by eight wickets in Faisalabad, which hosted its first international games after 17 years.
South Africa drew the two-test series 1-1, but Pakistan fought back to beat the Proteas 2-1 in the T20 series with back-to-back wins in Lahore.
Ahmed spins out Proteas
The left-handed opening pair of de Kock and Lhuan-dre Pretorius gave South Africa its third successive 70-plus start before the Proteas got strangled against the spinners on a tricky wicket.
The pair started cautiously against Pakistan captain Shaheen Shah Afridi’s left-arm pace and off-spinner Ayub before cutting lose against fast bowler Haris Rauf.
Rauf, who returned after serving two-match ban for violating ICC code of conduct during the Asia Cup in late September, was smashed for three boundaries in his first over and de Kock got his first runs with two back-to-back boundaries against Afridi as the pair put on 72 runs.
Off-spinner Salman Ali Agha provided the breakthrough when he had Pretorius caught at long-on for 39 and shortly afterwards Tony de Zorzi chipped away an easy catch at extra cover.
De Kock became the second-fastest South African batter to complete 7,000 ODI runs in 158 innings after Hashim Amla and raised his half century with a reverse sweep against the left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz. However, only two balls later he tried to slog sweep Nawaz and was out lbw for 53 off 70 balls that triggered a spectacular South African collapse.
Abrar picked up three wickets in his two overs as he beat debutant Rubin Hermann with a googly and clean bowled the left-hander; knocked back the leg stump around the legs of Donovan Ferreira and then hit the off stump of Corbin Bosch of a delivery that kept very low.
South Africa batters paid heavily for going onto the backfoot against the spinners as Bjorn Fortuin was out plumb leg before wicket against Nawaz, who finished with 2-31.
Afridi then finished off tailenders with two wickets in two balls as South Africa, playing without seven front-line white-ball players in the ODI series, got bowled out with more than 12 overs to spare.
“Not enough runs, we were probably looking at 250,” South Africa captain Matthew Breetzke said. “It was tough conditions and unfortunately we lost too many wickets there … Abrar bowled really nicely. Unluckily I got out in his last over. I was looking to be more positive after that, but yeah there was variable bounce.”
Ayub cruises Pakistan
Pakistan wobbled early when Fakhar Zaman fell for his second successive duck and was clean bowled by Nandre Burger off his second ball.
Ayub survived a close lbw against Burger but cut close against the pace as he raced to his half century off 39 balls with Babar Azam (27) also showing signs of returning back into batting rhythm with his trademark cover drives.
Both added better than run-a-ball 65 for the second wicket stand before Babar got run-out while going for the third run, but couldn’t beat the throw of Bosch from third and was short of his crease.
With only 14 required for victory, Ayub holed out to long-on to give left-arm spinner Fortuin consolation wicket as Mohammad Rizwan (32 not out) and Agha finished off the game with nearly half the overs to spare.
“It has been teamwork and we have worked very hard across the formats so credit goes to the players,” Afridi said after leading Pakistan to victory in his debut series as ODI skipper.
“We didn’t get so much help in the first five-six overs but when the spinners came in, they made it tough. When you play international cricket, you have to be ready for all situations, so every player who came in took their chances.”