South Africa's captain Graeme Smith celebrates a century (100 runs) during the second day of the second Test Match between Pakistan and South Africa at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on October 24, 2013. PHOTO: AFP
The Proteas will resume batting on Friday at 460 for four with Smith at 227 not out and de Villiers at an unbeaten 157.
The Pakistanis followed their miserable batting performance with an equally lacklustre bowling display on Thursday, conceding 334 runs in the second day's play while taking just one wicket.
Thats a pretty good day... Read the script beautifully and knew my time was up this morn! Haha! Great knocks @ABdeVilliers17 @GraemeSmith49
— Dale Steyn (@DaleSteyn62) October 24, 2013
After Mohammad Irfan bowled Dale Steyn for a score of seven, AB de Villiers walked in to join his skipper in a run-marathon of commanding shots struck all over the park.
Resuming on 67 overnight after Pakistan were bowled out for 99 in their first innings, Smith reached his 27th test century from 204 balls in a chanceless knock. He brought up his 150 half an hour before tea with three successive boundaries, and reached a double century in the evening session.
During the innings, the Proteas captain broke new ground by collecting more international Test runs than Inzamam (8830), Miandad(8832) and Graham Gooch (8900) of England.
De Villiers reached his century with 13 fours and a six just before the interval, although he was hobbling about in his crease because of cramp in the oppressive heat.
Got the big day that we wanted. Well played @GraemeSmith49 ,absolute pleasure batting with u. Need 2 grind it down tomorrow & then push hard
— AB de Villiers (@ABdeVilliers17) October 24, 2013
De Villiers was dropped by keeper Adnan Akmal on his first ball.
Ifan's spell was the only time South Africa came under pressure. He hit Smith with some body blows and the pair exchanged cold stares and heated words. The towering left-armer received two official warnings for running on the pitch in his follow through and he will be suspended for the remainder of the innings if he offends again.
At the end of the day's play, Junaid Khan had bowled 27 overs for 99 runs without a wicket and Mohammad Irfan as many overs for 84 runs and Steyn's scalp.
Spinners Saeed Ajmal and Zulfiqar Babar have two and one wicket to their name in the innings, respectively.
Pakistan lead the two-match series 1-0 after winning the first test by seven wickets in Abu Dhabi last week.
COMMENTS (6)
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Our media is main culprit who create hype and get answer of their choice from from players and management after a win,The media and analyst use top sound words and exaggerate while appreciating.That is the only problem-immaturity all levels.
Enyone else had to google the word "Lackluster" ;) Why don't you keep it simple ET ??
You mean "Owned"? And I thought my writing skills were atrocious.
Although this match was lost by Pakistan on the 1st day, but how long are the selectors going to persist with one of the Akmal brothers behind the stumps. To be a wicketkeeper batsman, you have to be able to keep wickets and not drop catches, miss stumpings and run-outs first. None of the Akmal brothers keep the wickets better than any of the cricket playing nation's top keepers. Why do we persist with these brothers as keepers?
"pwned"...really?
Is this a tabloid?
Wow! Kudos to SA! Come on Pak, show some muscles! Go down but FIGHT... Misbah's defensive technique is best suited to this current batting line up... Should have never batted first... But still, show some guts in the 2nd innings.