The South Africa tour of Pakistan, 2021 started with the first test match of the bilateral series on 26 Jan 2021 in National Stadium, Karachi. The series was also a part of ICC World Test Championship. After a long duration of 14 years, finally, South Africa played a test match on Pakistan soil. Imran Butt and Nauman Ali made their test debut for Pakistan. The match was started with the toss won by RSA Captain Quinton de Kock and he decided to bat first.
In the first inning of South Africa, Dean Elgar, and Aiden Markram were sent to the middle to open and Shaheen Shah Afridi got the new ball. SA lost its first wicket of Markram very early at 30 runs and then Rassie van der Dussen joined Elgar and completed the first 50 runs for their team on the scoreboard at 10.2 overs. Unfortunately, Rassie was dismissed as run-out by Babar Azam. South Africans were struggling in batting and could not stay longer on the crease. Only, Dean Elgar contributed 58 runs and the entire team collapsed at the score of 220 runs in just 69.2 overs. Pakistan bowlers did a good job and South Africa also made some mistakes and lost its two wickets as a runout. Yasir Shah got 3 wickets, Nauman Ali and Shaheen Shah Afridi took 2 wickets each.
Pakistan’s first inning started with the opening pair, Imran Butt and Abid Ali. SA seamer Kagiso Rabada got the new ball. South Africa needed some early wickets and Kagiso Rabada did a fabulous job by dismissing both the openers in the beginning. SA got a good start and had taken 4 wickets at 27 runs only. Then Fawad Alam at the number 6 position controlled the situation and contributed 109 runs that helped Pakistan to reach a total of 378 runs. Faheem Ashraf and Azhar Ali also made 64 and 51 runs. Pakistan got the lead of 158 runs in the first inning. Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj got 3 wickets, and Anrich, L Ngidi took 2 wickets each.
The second inning of SA started with Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar. South Africa lost its first wicket of Dean Elgar at the score of 48 runs. Then Rassie van der Dussen came to join and tried to handle the situation with Markram. Both players had added 127 runs for the first wicket partnership but then Pakistan bowlers bowled really well and got the breakthrough. Afterward, wickets started falling continuously, and the entire team bowled out at 245 runs only. Nauman Ali took 5 wickets in his debut test and Yasir Shah also got 4 wickets. Pakistan got the target of 88 runs only to win the match. Pakistan also lost a couple of wickets very early in the beginning but the target was not big and Pakistan had achieved it very comfortably.
Pakistan won the 1st Test match of the series by 7 wickets and Fawad Alam was named Man of the Match. Pakistan had taken a 1-0 lead in the Pak vs RSA series 2021.