Proteas bounce back in Rawalpindi with glorious victory over Pakistan to level Test series

South Africa fought back valiantly to level their Test series 1-1 against Pakistan with a convincing eight-wicket win on day four of the second Test match on Thursday, 23 October 2025. The victory in Rawalpindi is only South Africa’s third win in the subcontinent in a decade.

South Africa’s World Test Championship defence is back on track too with their first win of the cycle.

It took South Africa just 12.3 overs to chase the 68 runs they had been asked to pursue in the morning session after rampaging through the Pakistani middle and lower order this morning.

There were contributions throughout the lineup across the second Test match. Player of the series Senuran Muthusamy followed up his 11-wicket haul in the first Test match with an undefeated 89 in South Africa’s first innings.

Left-arm finger spinner Keshav Maharaj — who missed the first Test through injury — returned with aplomb, claiming seven wickets for 102 in the first innings.

And Simon Harmer, who is representing South Africa for the first time in more than two years in this series, claimed his maiden international five-wicket haul with six for 50 runs in 20 overs in the second innings.

Career-best Rabada

But the big difference in the ease of South Africa’s victory was an inspired display by Kagiso Rabada.

He’s done it several times with the red leather ball, but for the first time in his career he did it with the willow.

The stylish batter scored a career best 71 off 61 deliveries on day three, smashing four fours and four sweetly struck sixes.

What made the innings so impressive was its timing. Not only the ball rocketing off the bat, which was perfect to the millisecond, but the scenario of the match when he walked out to bat.

Pakistan scored a middling 333 runs in the first innings. South Africa’s top order battled to 185 for five, with fighting contributions from Tristan Stubbs (76) and Tony de Zorzi (55).

The lower-order — led by the bat of Muthusamy — pushed the score to 235 for eight — still 98 runs behind Pakistan’s first-innings score. Then Maharaj (30) and Muthasamy put together a 71-run ninth-wicket partnership to help the team to 306, only 27 runs behind.

The Proteas would have believed that the best case scenario at that point would have been to try to level the scores and have a second innings bat-out on a wearing pitch.

But Rabada, coming in at number 11, had other ideas and played the most sumptuous drives in the process. One in particular, a lofted on-drive for six off a length ball from the bowling of a reverse-swing-bowling Shaheen Shah Afridi will be played on loop in the Proteas’ changing room.

On a wicket where everyone else in the Proteas’ lineup was batting at a strike rate of about 50, Rabada swayed the match massively in South Africa’s favour, scoring his maiden international half-century and finishing on 71 off 61 deliveries before he was caught at long-off.

Together Rabada and Muthusamy shared a 98-run stand for the 10th wicket as South Africa’s first innings ended on 404, a substantial 71-run lead.

Finishing off

Pakistan were on the back foot from then and lost four second innings top-order wickets before they were able to erase the deficit. Harmer was the chief destroyer, taking over from Maharaj in the first innings.

“I think the [bowling] unit that is out here in these conditions is up there with the best in the world,” Markram said. “Generally, you think of South Africa as just seamers with a spinner here and there, but in conditions like this, the guys put their hand up and put in performances. It’s bloody exciting for us as a team to see.”

Pakistan’s overnight score of 98 for four — a lead of only 27 — would have been a concern for them, but with the knowledge that a rearguard effort with the bat might have caused some issues for South Africa in the final innings of the match.

The effort did not come as Pakistan only added 40 runs to their overnight score, losing six wickets in the morning session.

Markram (42) tried to finish the match as quickly as possible, sweeping incessantly — before it was his downfall — to aid the side in reaching the required 68 runs.

Stubbs (nought) fell before the winning runs were smacked by Ryan Rickelton, with De Zorzi at the crease alongside him. It was an apt end to the series with South Africa’s two best batters of the tour at the crease together. DM