South Africa vs Pakistan, 3rd ODI at Johannesburg, , Mar 17 2013 - Ball by Ball Commentary

A high-scoring encounter with South Africa winning it and taking a 2-1 lead. AB and Amla led the way, and Faf's cameo, in hindsight, played a crucial role. Pakistan's batsmen got starts but weren't able to push on. Afridi threatened to take the game away from South Africa but by the time he began imposing his presence, you knew his wicket was the only one that mattered to restore South Africa's control over the match. An entertaining game, the hosts were certainly given a scare in the chase. Firdose Moonda's report should be getting ready, I'll be back with you with the presentation in a bit.

Michael Haysman's dressed in pink as well for the presentation.

Misbah-ul-Haq: "I'm really pleased with the way everybody played. The way we played today, it showed we can be a good chasing side. To lose Irfan was disappointing, that maybe led us to concede 20 or 30 runs more. With these field restrictions, you need five fielders in the circle, we just backed Afridi and he played tremendously today. We know he can hit it a long way, when he came to bat and hit the first six, I told him, "mate, you can score a hundred here." With these new rules, if two batsmen are set, it's difficult to control them, also there was no spin, no seam nothing. We could improve to bring the total down, our fielding, and if our batsmen can just keep building on starts and score a big one, if today one of our batsmen had scored big, we could have won this game. Afridi is okay [after the thumb injury], we need to push him."

AB: "Very proud of the way the boys performed, it's good to have the support here. It means a lot, we always wanted to get involved with the initiative. We did it for a good reason, hopefully we raised a lot of funds out of it. It's always nice to bat with Amla, he makes it easy for me, he rotates the strike very well, I'm hoping he gets the Man of the Match. A little bit of luck and pre-meditation to score that six over extra cover. I told the boys in a huddle when we got a couple of wickets at the other end, "we cannot get ourselves down when a guy like Afridi is playing like this," and I'm proud of the way we fought back. Rory, Ryan and Lopsy, the whole bowling unit did really well. Just looking forward to Durban."

Both Amla and AB will share the Man of the Match award for that record partnership. Amla: "We had a great atmosphere, batting up front was a little difficult, when AB came in we got some rhythm. I'm always for it [DRS], it was a little difficult in the first 10 overs. Faf came in at the end and set the tone as well. We've been fortunate that guys batting in the middle order, in Bloemfontein Farhaan came in and did it for us. We managed to set it up, AB's knock was a fantastic one. We've become accustomed to his freakish shot, he's got a new MCC manual to develop all by himself. The pitch flattened out, 650 runs, that's a magnificent showing for the venue, the crowd got to see a lot of sixes. Durban's a crucial game for us, hopefully we're going to close it down there."

That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in and sending us your feedback. Do join us for the next game in Durban. Until then, it's goodbye.

35 off 12 now, too much to ask of Wahab you would think

Mohammad Irfan is the last man