CRICKET POLL

Pakistan continued to push on towards South Africa's lead of 421 in the first session of Day 4 as they moved to 312/3 at Lunch in Newlands. Shan Masood continued to be the mainstay at the crease as he moved closer to 150 while the visitors reduced the deficit to 109 runs. The visitors added 99 runs despite losing two wickets at just above 3.5 runs per over.

Nightwatchman Khurram Shahzad, who did his job seeing the visitors to Stumps on Day 3, played his shots to clinch a couple of early boundaries. The centurion Masood, on the other hand, was lucky to not nick behind to the 'keeper and was relatively subdued in his approach early on. But he soon once again found joy with the pull shot which had worked so well for him throughout his innings. Marco Jansen finally broke the mini-partnership as the extra bounce forced Shahzad to tentatively push one to the point fielder.

Jansen should have had two in the over but David Bedingham dropped Kamran Ghulam at first slip when he was on nought. To add salt to the wounds, the ball raced away for four. The lanky bowler then pushed the ball up near the feet of Masood who survived a LBW appeal as the ball was heading down leg.

South Africa's pace ace Kagiso Rabada was brought into the attack towards the end of the first hour and troubled Ghulam immediately with a peach, beating the batter on the outside edge. Ghulam then scored three boundaries off Rabada with cuts and slashes through the offside. All these deliveries Rabada bowled were shaping away from the batter, but he bowled one fuller thereafter and got it to nip back which had Ghulam's stumps castled. It was a beautiful set-up against the right-hander which also resulted in Rabada's 50th Test wicket at Newlands.

With two left handers at the crease, the hosts turned to Aiden Markram to roll his arm over but he was too full in length which left the Pakistan batters untroubled, and the visitors brought up the 300. The hosts introduced Kwena Maphaka towards the end of the session and was unfortunate to not have picked up Saud Shakeel. The debutant got the left-hander to play around one which crashed into his pads but the hosts opted not to review with the premonition that the ball was going down leg. However, ball-tracking showed otherwise as the ball was crashing into leg stump which denied South Africa a timely wicket just before the stroke of Lunch.

Brief Scores: South Africa 615 (Ryan Rickelton 259, Temba Bavuma 106, Kyle Verreynne 100; Mohammad Abbas 3-94, Salman Ali Agha 3-148) lead Pakistan 194 (Babar Azam 58, Mohammad Rizwan 46; Kagiso Rabada 3-55, Keshav Maharaj 2-14) & 312/3 (Shan Masood 137*, Babar Azam 81; Marco Jansen 2-74) by 109 runs