Pakistan vs South Africa, 3rd T20I at Lahore, PAK vs SA, Nov 01 2025 - Match Result

12:10am It was the first Player-of-the-Match award since April 2023 for Babar in T20Is, which was also in Lahore. Agha lifts the series trophy and heads to the squad that is waiting behind the board that says "WINNERS". That's all we have for you tonight. Do join us for the first ODI on Tuesday afternoon. Should be a fun series that. Till then, take care, stay hydrated. Ciao!

11:55pm Time for the presentation.

Babar Azam, Player of the Match: "The way Lahore crowd supported, this innings was due. I backed myself, the team believed in me. I was hoping for such a knock. There is pressure in everything. It is about how you absorb it. I wanted to do what the team needed, play according to the situation. I worked on my strengths, improved my weaknesses. At the start, the ball was gripping for spinners. Agha and I wanted to see off spinners. Fast bowlers were easy to face. Wanted to take it deep and build partnerships. Worked for the team. People should support every Pakistan player like they support me."

Faheem Ashraf, Player of the Series: "I have a role in the team. I try to play accordingly, be it with ball, bat or on the field. Even if I don't get to bowl or bat, I try to help the team with my fielding. I get edge as a bowler because I can think as a batter. So I try to think like a batter while I bowl, batter gets disturbed. When a batter expects me to bowl slow, I try to go pace-on. I am ready to adapt to the team's need with ball and bat."

Donovan Ferreira, South Africa captain: "We didn't perform with the bat once again. Bowlers did well to fight till the end. Not enough runs on the board. We can take a lot of positives. For our bowlers, never done until the end. For batters, we can't keep losing in clusters. Can take a lot from what they did. They kept it simple, bowled a lot of cutters. Credit to them. [Captaincy] Definitely enjoyed it. Last five overs were exciting, doing something unorthodox. Shout out to the ladies, who are in the finals of the World Cup. We are going to be watching."

Salman Agha, Pakistan strong: "Good team does that. When they have great performance, they back that. T20 World Cup is three-four months away. Players know their roles, it is about executing. What the game needs, you need to do. We have so many games coming up. We have 14-15 games in 20-25 days. Hard for everyone to play every game. [The finish tonight] That's what Pakistan is! Need to be clinical, but I'll take that since we came back from 0-1 to win the series."

11:38pm A perfect Babar Azam run-chase for Pakistan! He took time to get going in the powerplay against spin. But against pace, he was as comfortable as ever. The drives were on show, the cuts were with precision. The stable partnership with Agha helped him accelerate and end the series for Pakistan in a clinical manner. It was a win that was set-up by their bowlers with Afridi, Ashraf and debutant Tariq all chipping in. But if Lahore needed to come alive on a Saturday night, Babar's half-century proved to be the perfect reason for it, Pakistan's 2-1 scoreline only proving to be the icing.

South Africa will have to do a bit of thinking about their batting against off-pace deliveries on a track like tonight's. It was not a sticky pitch per se. The cutters and slower ones were tough to get away, but the track had nothing to do with their dismissal. De Kock failed to counter the inward movement, Pretorius flicked one straight to short fine leg, Breetzke failed to cover the line of the ball. They still did well to put up a fighting score after losing wickets in clusters.

South Africa have a lot of positives as well. Linde's show with the ball, Brevis' cameo tonight, Ferreira against the change-ups and spin of Tariq, Bosch with bat and ball. Sets us up nicely for the ODIs to follow next week. Hang around for the presentations.

aliayyaz: "well these last few overs show you how important Babar is for the batting lineup. "

Akbar: "Not the "six hitting debate" again. Saf did hit 6 sixes and Pak only 1. Yet the winner is Pakistan. Hence proving only looking to hit sixes will not win you matches. "

Kaif: "Agreed with Ibrahim and Zia here! As Zia pointed out, Pakistan fumbled a lot the last 15 runs after Babar's wicket, though thankfully we won. Fault for Babar too that he couldn't take the team across the line, but still a great innings and great running between the wickets which was missing previously as Pakistan had been playing a lot of dot balls in the middle...."

Pakistan three away

Faheem Ashraf is the new man in

Mohammad Nawaz waits at the non-striker's end. Simelane back on

shab: "Pakistans problem is big hits. They have hit a total of 1 six in this chase whereas even after struggling through the innings Saf still managed to hit 6 sixes."

Ibrahim : "This discussion would have been fair if Babar has taken someone's place who plays aggressive risk-reward cricket. At the moment, no one is around as such, so should sum it up?"

zia: "i see every comment that doubts babar gets published, but i think he fits in the t20 side like hand in glove, now that hes out lets see how the team fares these last 15 runs" No one's doubting Babar, certainly not with the amount of runs he has in T20Is

The crowd starts walking out with Babar now gone, Hasan Nawaz is the new batter in. Short leg in place

Abdul: "This innings does give Babar a lot of confidence in upcoming odis"

Bosch from around the wicket now

ABAE: "Not saying he's without fault but I also don't think Babar would play a chase of 180-200 the same way. He's definitely not the type of player to play high risk high reward cricket when the run rate doesn't demand it, unlike other more naturally aggressive players" fair point