Pakistan Vs South Africa LIVE Score, 1st ODI: Proteas Lose De Zorzi; Breetzke, Qeshile At Crease | SA 191/3 (33)

After struggling to get going for a while, Breetzke finally frees his arms. He gets a freebie from Abrar, absolutely thumping a flighted ball over long-on for a massive, massive six. Qeshile joins in, ending the 33rd over with a boundary.

With the run rate stagnating, Qeshile opens his arms to drag Shaheen Afridi’s outside off delivery for a boundary. South Africa need more of those if they want to recover their stunning start.

That’s three down for South Africa, as Tony de Zorzi is caught and bowled by Saim, who gets his second wicket of the night. Very poor shot selection from the Proteas batter, and the turn gets an inside edge which flies back to the bowler. Sinethemba Qeshile comes on as the new batter.

Pakistan had pegged down the run rate in the last couple of overs, and the pressure gets to de Kock. The veteran tries to defend a back of the length delivery, but he plays it against the angle, and the inside edge hits the stumps. Matthew Breetzke is the new batter.

Playing his first ODI after a gap of two years, de Kock sweeps Saim for a boundary towards short fine leg and reaches his half-century in 50 deliveries. A terrific innings this is turning out to be for the Proteas, who will likely be looking at a 300+ total at this rate.

So disappointing from Pretorius, who was looking like he was on for a big score tonight. A flighted delivery from Saim, and Pretorius attempted to slice at it. However, he only manages an outside edge, and Nawaz takes a terrific catch at point. Pretorius goes 57 on his ODI debut.

Pretorius attempted to reverse sweep a fuller delivery from Abrar. He missed, and it hit him plumb on the pads. There’s a huge LBW shout from the Pakistani players, but the umpire is unmoved.

Pakistan immediately review, and UltraEdge shows a deflection off the gloves. Terrific read by the umpire.

A dream ODI debut for Lhuan-dre Pretorius, who reaches his half-century in 45 balls, becoming the 11th South African batter to achieve this feat. He has made de Kock play second fiddle – not an easy thing to do!

De Kock, who has been a bit quiet considering his lofty standards, charges down the crease and smacks Abrar for a six over long off. The next delivery almost leads to Pretorius being run out, but a dive and a poor throw saves him.

The South African batter welcomes Salman Agha with a boundary off the first ball of the 10th over, and then follows it up with a massive six over mid-wicket. A couple of really good overs for SA as the first Powerplay comes to an end.

13 runs in the last two overs, with the South African openers hitting three boundaries. The run rate remains just over five-an-over. As a result, Pakistan have turned to spin, bringing on Salman Ali Agha.

After Pretorius punished Naseemm Shah with a sublime cover drive that raced away for a four, it’s de Kock’s turn. The veteran batter ends an otherwise tight over from Shaheen Afridi by flicking a fuller delivery past towards the square leg for a boundary.

Lhuan-dre Pretorius and Quinton de Kock are South Africa’s openers . The former has opened his account against Pakistan’s new-ball wizard Shaheen Shah Afridi, and the visitors are three-for-naught.

Pakistan: Saim Ayub, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Salman Agha, Hussain Talat, Hasan Nawaz, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Shah Afridi (c), Naseem Shah, Abrar Ahmed.

South Africa: Quinton de Kock (wk), Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Tony de Zorzi, Matthew Breetzke (c), Sinethemba Qeshile, Donovan Ferreira, George Linde, Corbin Bosch, Bjorn Fortuin, Lungi Ngidi, Lizaad Williams.

Shaheen Shaheen Afridi (Pakistan): “We will bowl first. It’s fresh, it’s been a long time since an ODI was played here. It’s a good opportunity and responsibility, I will try to enjoy and give confidence to the players. Everyone is looking forward to the series.”

Matthew Breetzke (South Africa): “It looks a bit dry and we have heard that the dew comes in later so we will have to assess in the first ten overs. We have taken a lot of lessons from the T20I series but we have done well in the format in the past few months and we will take confidence from that. We have three debuts.”

Pakistan: Saim Ayub, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Hussain Talat, Salman Agha, Hasan Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi (c), Mohammad Nawaz, Haris Rauf, Abrar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Naseem Shah, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Faisal Akram, Haseebullah Khan.

South Africa: Quinton de Kock (wk), Tony de Zorzi, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Matthew Breetzke (c), Donovan Ferreira, Corbin Bosch, Dewald Brevis, Sinethemba Qeshile, George Linde, Bjorn Fortuin, Lizaad Williams, Lungi Ngidi, Ottneil Baartman, Nandre Burger, Nqabayomzi Peter.

Greetings and welcome to everyone joining us this Tuesday. We are back with another cricket blog, as Pakistan prepare to host South Africa for the first of three ODIs. Stay with us for the build-up, toss, playing XIs and live updates.