SA vs PAK Live Score

8:06 PM IST Right then, an ODI series win in Australia and already a 1-0 series lead in South Africa. Pakistan are on a bit of a roll and next up, they will travel to Cape Town for the 2nd ODI. South Africa will be looking to bounce back at Newlands and level up the series. The 2nd ODI will be played on Thursday, 19 December and will begin at 12 pm GMT. You can join us a lot sooner though for the build-up. Cheers!

8:05 PM IST Pakistan's captain Mohammad Rizwan emphasizes the collective effort behind his team’s performance. He notes that while the fast bowlers struggled early, the spinners turned the game around, and the pacers delivered in the death overs. Rizwan highlights the comeback potential in ODI cricket, praising players like Abrar Ahmed and Salman Agha for their ability to take crucial wickets after the Powerplay. He also underlines the importance of unity within the team, expressing pride in awarding the Player of the Match to a youngster as a way to foster camaraderie and team spirit.

8:05 PM IST Salman Agha is the PLAYER OF THE MATCH for his brilliance with both bat and ball but he calls up Saim Ayub and shares the award with him. When asked about the partnership, Salman says that it was fantastic in the middle with Ayub and Saim being there gave him a lot of confidence at the start of his innings. Salman adds that he is sharing this trophy with Saim because it's not easy to face the new ball and continue to bat with wickets falling all around him and then get to a hundred against such a bowling attack. Salman believes that Saim did the hard work to provide the stage for Salman to win the game in the end. Saim Ayub talks about him keeping the belief that they can do it and the partnership with a senior player gave him a lot of experience needed to bat the way he batted.

8:01 PM IST Aiden Markram, the captain of South Africa says that they were looking for somewhere between 270 and 300 but hopefully, they can improve for the next game in Cape Town. Adds that the plan is always to take the game deep and just want to avoid making the same mistakes they did in this game and mentions that there were a few positives as well including the way Heinrich Klaasen batted. Mentions that he is proud of the fight his team put up.

7:57 PM IST The Presentation ceremony...

7:56 PM IST Earlier in the game, South Africa won the toss and opted to bat first on a track that looked great to bat initially and the South African opening pair of Tony de Zorzi and Ryan Rickelton added 70 runs in quick time to reinstate that fact. However, as soon as the spinners came on, everything changed and Salman Agha who is more of a batting all-rounder ran riot picking up 4 wickets in quick succession and pegged South Africa back. Heinrich Klaasen then added a couple of valuable stands with Aiden Markram and Marco Jansen and scored 86 runs himself to take South Africa to a half-decent total. Pakistan were solid with the ball and the lead spinner, Abrar Ahmed picked up a couple of wickets as well whilst being highly economical.