Kwena Maphaka claims Babar Azam as his maiden Test wicket

Kwena Maphaka’s rise in international cricket continued with the same fervour in the second Test between South Africa and Pakistan at Newlands in Cape Town. This time, he added Babar Azam’s prized wicket in his possession to mark his ascend in international cricket. 

After South Africa’s marathon innings of 615 runs finally ended, Pakistan suffered a poor start. Skipper Shan Masood was dismissed in the first over, and Saud Shakeel’s dismissal in the ninth over made Pakistan 20/3. 

Babar, who was opening the innings due to Saim Ayub’s injury, batted quite well along with Rizwan, and both batted together for 26.1 overs. It finally felt like the visitors’ innings had stabilised. Rizwan was also fighting it out from the other end. 

However, after the drinks break, Maphaka returned to bowl another spell right after Babar completed his first half-century in Test cricket and ended the 98-run stand. After bowling hard length, he angled one down leg to Babar, who followed the ball's trajectory with his bat to flick it off his hips. However, he only got a faint tickle on it, and wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne didn’t miss the opportunity behind the stumps. 

Maphaka went berserk in euphoria as it was his maiden Test wicket and took off across the turf with his arms aloft and teammates behind him. 

Rizwan perished five overs later, and even Salman Agha couldn’t add to the total this time as Pakistan’s first innings ended at 194. Maphaka finished with figures of 2/43. The Proteas have made them follow on post that, and at the time of writing this report, Pakistan are 35/0 in seven overs. 

South Africa are already 1-0 up in the two-Test series.