By Peter Deeley
ALLAN Donald paid the ultimate tribute to the man who has become a permanent thorn in the side for South Africa. After suffering as Azhar Mahmood took a third hundred for Pakistan off their bowlers in seven Test innings, the fast bowler said: ``I know he has a weakness - though I have yet to find it.''
Donald himself had reason to celebrate as Azhar's inside edge on to his stumps gave him five wickets in an innings for the tenth time in 39 Tests on the opening day of this second game of the series.
That was the end of a memorable knock by Azhar, who had taken on the home seam attack single-handed, hitting even Donald back over his head and hooking him forward of square leg as he reached 132.
He lifted Pakistan from 89 for five to 259 and then took a sharp catch at gully in the final moments to leave South Africa on 23 for one.
Azhar, 23 tomorrow, whose Test career began five months ago, now has an average of 90 and against South Africa it is a phenomenal 117.75.
No wonder the home team's captain, Hansie Cronje, singled Azhar out as Pakistan's biggest danger before the day began. Their coach, Bob Woolmer, was no less respectful after it. ``A quite magnificent innings,'' he said.
Having been put in, Pakistan's early batting was its usual brittle self on a two-paced wicket. Lacking Inzamam-ul-Haq, who twisted his ankle in fielding practice, they struggled desperately until Azhar arrived, with Yousaf Youhana scoring five on his first Test appearance before edging a catch when he attempted to withdraw his bat.
For some reason Pakistan persist in batting Azhar as low as No 7 so he is always depending on tail-end support. This time he received it mainly from Shoaib Akhtar, in a ninth-wicket stand of 80.
Shoaib's contribution to that partnership was six. Azhar farmed the bowling so cleverly that he faced four-fifths of the balls and his second fifty came up in 42 minutes off 47 deliveries.
He scored 96 out of the innings' last 106 runs, hit 24 boundaries and few who watched him could fail to see that despite his slight stature and quiet personality he is a giant in the making.
Day 2: Shoaib stuns South Africa
By Peter Deeley
IF PAKISTAN's new pace bowler Shoaib Akhtar ever achieves his plan of playing club cricket in Milton Keynes this summer, opponents should take note and duck. This man is probably the fastest thing in cricket today.
Bowling in excess of a measured 90 miles an hour in Durban yesterday he made even Allan Donald and Waqar Younis look measured with a Test best five for 43 in only his third game.
County batsmen may remember Shoaib's all-out aggression on the Pakistan A tour of England last summer, when some observers were already talking of another embryonic Waqar Younis until he broke down.
Shoaib, 22, is suffering with a severe knee problem and would not be playing in this game but for Pakistan's injury problems.
In two devastating spells in the high humidity, Shoaib destroyed South Africa's hopes of a big first-innings lead in the second Test. They were bowled out for 231 and Pakistan finished the second day 39 runs ahead.
Because of the injury Shoaib did not bowl until after lunch. He accounted Jacques Kallis and Andrew Hudson with successive balls and added three more victims in three overs, all beaten for sheer pace.
South Africa lost seven wickets for 63, and only the debutant Hylton Ackerman, with 57, provided any resistance before Shaun Pollock, against an exhausted attack, enhanced his reputation as an all-rounder in a last-wicket stand of 53.
Day 3: Pakistan's selectors call up Wasim Akram
By Peter Deeley
WASIM AKRAM has been called up to join Pakistan's injury-hit tour party in South Africa, having initially been omitted while match-fixing allegations against him were investigated.
Wasim, Lancashire's fast-bowler, appeared before a parliamentary committee, who cleared him and allowed him to resume playing for Pakistan - and his chance came earlier than expected.
In the second Test at Kingsmead, Pakistan put themselves into a strong position before Shaun Pollock enhanced his claim as one of the world's top all-rounders with another five wickets after his undefeated innings of 70 on the second day, which rescued South Africa from another batting slump.
The 24-year-old red-head will play a major role on South Africa's tour of England this summer and he is already looking forward to returning to a stage where in a season with Warwickshire he learned much about the arts of the game.
What made his performance extraordinary yesterday was the news just after lunch that Allan Donald had broken down with a strained buttock muscle and would not bowl again.
Pakistan were then cruising away on the third day with an overall lead of 189 and plenty of wickets in hand. The odds were all against South Africa getting back into the contest. The ball was 64 overs old when Pollock made his first breakthrough, the pitch flat and the humidity intense.
Inside two hours Pakistan lost seven wickets for 61 runs and when bad light stopped play they were 222 for eight - 250 runs on and perhaps not enough to give them the win which seemed assured earlier.
Pollock first produced some extra bounce to force debutant Yousaf Youhana to flick a catch to Marc Boucher behind the stumps. Then came a half-hour break for light and after his return the latter half of Pollock's spell read 5-2-7-4.
He had Moin Khan and then more crucially Saeed Anwar leg before and followed up with the wicket of South Africa's chief tormentor Azhar Mahmood who threw his bat tennis-style at a steepling ball and edged another catch.
Finally Waqar Younis clipped the fast bowler tamely to mid-on, and Pollock still had the energy, while his team-mates departed again because of the light, to spend five minutes on the boundary signing authographs. He said later: ``We were certainly up against it. There was no sideways movement so I had to look for swing - and it worked.''
This has been a game of two up-and-coming all-rounders. There is Pollock and there is Azhar, who came to the crease yesterday on his 23rd birthday with a Test average of 90 and three centuries against South Africa in seven innings. His timing and the power of his hitting during his hundred in Pakistan's first innings caused many to gasp in wonderment. Azhar once fancied himself as an opening bowler, but he is now used as first change and has taken 13 wickets in his eight games.
Before Pollock's onslaught with the ball Anwar reached his first hundred for Pakistan in 16 months. He and Sohail added 101 for the first wicket - and astonishingly that was the first century opening partnership against South Africa for 32 years, including their period in the sporting wilderness.
Day 4: Mushtaq skill gives Pakistan decisive edge
By Peter Deeley in Durban
IT WILL be one of the more improbable Test wins if South Africa, who need another 69 runs with their ninth-wicket pair together, snatch the prize from Pakistan's very grasp today.
An hour before the close of the fourth day at Kingsmead they were as good as beaten, with Mushtaq Ahmed destroying their batting in a classic display of leg-spin. His performance highlighted the South African selectors' error in not including a spinner.
Needing 255 to win when they began their innings in the morning, South Africa lost eight wickets in quick time - six of them to Mushtaq at a cost of 39 runs in a spell of 26.1 overs.
Then fatigue set in among the bowlers, and the unlikely combination of the oldest and youngest in South Africa's side Fanie de Villiers, 33, in the twilight of his career, and Mark Boucher, 21, at the outset of his - added 53 in an hour.
The odds must be on the tourists to win, but the bad news for them is that rain is forecast.
When de Villiers arrived in the middle, South Africa were 122 runs away from victory - light years by the way Mushtaq had carved up the recognised batsmen.
De Villiers has always had a strong sense of humour and when he straightaway played a reverse sweep to the spinner, then gave him a broad grin, it suggested he saw the absurdity of the task.
But at the other end Boucher played Mushtaq more sensibly than any of his peers and, as the runs mounted, De Villiers began to take his role seriously.
The 15,000 spectators almost doubled the three previous days' attendance, helped by the Sunday television blackout of the Test in the area, and the United Cricket Board are intent this should become a regular feature in future.
Mushtaq increased his Test tally to 155 wickets, including nine in this game. It is the spinner's 36th Test, and the disparity in his wicket-taking in the two halves of his career is extraordinary. In his first 18 Tests Mushtaq took 44 wickets; in the last 18 to date he has collected 111.
Wasim Akram, Lancashire's captain, is expected to join Pakistan's injury-hit party from England before the third Test in Port Elizabeth, which starts on Friday. He was initially omitted, pending an inquiry into match-fixing allegations.
Day 5: Waqar crushes the last attempts at resistance
By Peter Deeley in Durban
THE enigma that is Pakistan outclassed South Africa by more than the final 29-run victory margin suggests to go one up in the series with only the Port Elizabeth Test to come.
The final act was tense with ninth-wicket pair Mark Boucher and Fanie de Villiers taking their stand to 86 but heroism alone was not enough against Waqar Younis with the new ball.
Boucher scored a maiden half-century in his third Test before Waqar bowled him and followed this with a straightforward leg before decision against Allan Donald.
De Villiers' unorthodox strategy against Mushtaq Ahmed - playing only sweeps and most of those in reverse - earned him an unbeaten 46 in what may be his last Test appearance.
The spinner confessed he had been ``slightly irritated'' by the No 10's tactics but he will be placated by the individual award for his match figures of nine for 148 and an incomparable display of slow bowling.
It won praise on all sides and South African captain Hansie Cronje compared Mushtaq favourably to Shane Warne. ``Shane gets more drift but it is to Mushtaq's advantage that he spins the ball more both ways.''
This defeat, coming within two days of the national football's team loss in the final of the African Nations Cup, has dealt a blow to the South African sporting psyche.
The selectors have been heavily criticised for failing to play a spinner here - even Aamir Sohail, the Pakistan captain said he was ``a little surprised'' - and there is little time for South Africa to recover their equilibrium before the final Test starts in Port Elizabeth on Friday.
Pakistan, on the other hand, have Wasim Akram flying in and Inzamam-ul-Haq ready to come back after injury (not to mention Saqlain Mushtaq, the brilliant off-spinner waiting for his first Test in South Africa).
It is a measure of Pakistan's unpredictability - one moment looking like the world's best, the next a rag-bag of conflicting personalities - that only a fortnight ago some of their senior players were talking privately about abandoning the tour. That was in the middle of the drawn Johannesburg Test when the controversy over muggings, alleged visits to call-girl clubs and lack of co-operation with the police portrayed the tourists in their poorest light.
``That fiasco only helped us to focus,'' said Sohail. ``The guys were sick of everything and we got our attitude back.''
Sohail, however, seemed astonished that anyone could think Wasim might not play in the last Test, even if it meant changing a winning side. ``He is one of the world's best: if he is fit and wants to play, he must.''
Wasim, who has not played for over two months due to injury, said: ``I'm delighted to be involved again.''
At a press conference before leaving England yesterday, he added: ``This is the first decent rest I have had for a long time. I feel fit and I'm looking forward to the challenge.'' He is expected to rejoin Lancashire at the end of April.
Then he will concentrate his efforts on guiding the county as their new captain. He is not the first captain at Old Trafford to be baffled by the county's failure to win the championship outright since 1934.
``That's our No 1 priority,'' said Wasim, who made his Lancashire debut in 1988 and has been awarded a benefit to coincide with his first year in charge. ``I believe we are as good as any side in the country. The players are on one-year contracts now, they're fit and gaining the mental strength they need to succeed in the championship.''