The fast-bowling allrounder from rural Madhya Pradesh grabbed every cricketing opportunity that came her way and now finds herself heading to the WPL

S Sudarshanan13-Feb-2025Seven years ago at a women’s leather-ball cricket match in Ghuwara, a small town in Bundelkhand in the Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, one of the teams was a player short. Spotting a young girl wandering around with a stick in hand, they asked her if she would like to play. That 14-year-old had grown up playing tennis-ball cricket, and was crazy enough about it to risk a scolding, playing it even when her exams were on.But all she had played was tennis-ball cricket matches and tournaments with boys, much to the displeasure of her neighbours and those known to her family, who thought that a village girl was not meant to play cricket.That did not bother the teenager or her family. She grabbed that chance to play her first leather-ball game, starred with bat and ball and took home player-of-the-match honours.Kranti Goud, at age 21, is now a fast-bowling allrounder who has made her way to the UP Warriorz team for WPL 2025

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Goud was in Chandigarh for the Senior Women’s One Day Trophy, and she watched the WPL 2025 auction with her Madhya Pradesh team-mates. She had picked up 3 for 24 against Chhattisgarh the previous day, but had low expectations from the auction. She had been a net bowler with Mumbai Indians in 2024 and loved the environment of the WPL. Her name came up in the uncapped-players’ set, and much to her surprise, she was selected by Warriorz at her base price of Rs 10 lakh (approximately US$12,000).”When UP Warriorz picked me, I had tears in my eyes,” Goud says. “I called my family and spoke to my oldest brother, Mayank Singh.” She is the youngest of six siblings – three brothers and three sisters. ” He was watching the auction – he had been looking forward to it. At first he got very emotional, and we couldn’t speak. I called him again after a while; he started crying and even I couldn’t control myself.Goud led the Sagar Division Under-16 side to the final of an inter-divisional tournament conducted by the MPCA, where they were runners-up for the first time•Rajiv Bilthre”They say in the village that she is a girl, so don’t let her play cricket. But my brother did not listen to them, supported me fully. The family supported me. So that is why I am here.”My first thought after getting picked was that I had been doing well in the senior one-dayers, so I just wanted to continue the same in the WPL. I was also excited to meet the India players and play alongside them.”After that memorable first match with a leather ball, Goud travelled to Jatara, a town about 70km away in Tikamgarh district, for another match, where she did well again. There she was spotted by Rajiv Bilthre, the secretary of the Chhatarpur District Cricket Association (CDCA) and the coach of Sagar Division, who runs the Sai Cricket Academy.”She was agile, fast, and very athletic. I felt she could do well, so I asked her father to enrol her with me and leave her in Chhatarpur,” Bilthre says. “I told him I will make a good player of her. Her father said, ‘ [We are entrusting our daughter to you.] You have to shape her future.’ It is her effort and talent that has got her to where she is, by god’s grace. I did what I could. Her family was financially not well off, so I helped her a bit – kit, dress or bat – because these days you need good bats.”In India it is natural for youngsters to pick up a cricket bat; batters have long held sway in the public imagination – Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Mithali Raj, Virat Kohli, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana. How did Goud take to fast bowling then?”It just happened,” she laughs. “As I started playing with the tennis ball, I saw that everyone just ran in and bowled medium pace. I did not even know spin bowlers existed. Where are spinners in tennis-ball cricket anyway? My brother also told me to bowl medium pace, so I did that. After I joined [Bilthre’s] academy, I saw there weren’t many medium-pacers. I saw one, Sushma Vishwakarma, who became my friend. She also asked me to stick to fast bowling and there was no looking back.”Rajiv Bilthre (left), who coached Sagar Division in the MPCA, was the first to spot Goud’s talent•Rajiv BilthreAround the time India finished runners-up in the Women’s ODI World Cup final in 2017, the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association launched an Under-16 women’s tournament. Teams competed at the division level first. From there, a pool of talent was created for the state side. Satyam Tripathi, cricket operations manager at Sagar Division, which comprises the districts of Sagar, Chhatarpur, Damoh, Panna, Tikamgarh and Niwari, set out to make a women’s team with Bilthre’s help. They went to various schools to create awareness, contacted parents, and managed to get over 40 girls to the academy, from which 15 were selected for Sagar Division.”We conducted an inter-district U-16 tournament, in which Kranti played from Chhatarpur district,” Tripathi says. “She was their captain and gave all-round performances. We then made her the captain of Sagar Division, and we finished runners-up for the first time in the 2018-19 U-16 tournament that the MPCA conducted. Teams from Indore, Gwalior and Bhopal used to play more, so one-odd win in the tournament for Sagar Division was a big thing. Kranti helped our team finish runners-up – Bhopal were the champions – and her career kind of kickstarted there.”Goud always had the speed. Her lean figure allowed her to run in hard and bowl fast. The zip she generated in tennis-ball cricket often confounded batters. She moves the leather ball both ways at high speed, a skill she has developed over time and one that was on show in the Senior Women’s One Day Trophy final this season. She picked up 4 for 25 in the final, including the wicket of India wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh, bowled through the gate. Madhya Pradesh won the trophy for the first time.”She had the speed [when she was younger], which was unlike most girls at the time,” Bilthre says. “She used to match the boys when she used to run. I felt she was extraordinary at that age. So we focused on her fitness and undertook some bowling drills. She is very hard-working: if she is on the ground for three hours, she will spend every minute on the ground and not laze around or chit-chat.”At CDCA as well as Sagar Division, Bilthre focused on having players with all-round skills. He recognised the need for multifaceted players and helped them develop. In Goud’s batting, he saw promise. She had the power and was nimble on her feet, which she used well against spin. He worked on her technique and taught her the importance of hitting in the V. Goud honed her batting skills with months of practice under methodical guidance from Bilthre. But she lacked one thing: patience.Bilthre on Goud inspiring young girls: “People believe if she can get to the state and WPL team from my academy, then even they should give it a shot”•Getty Images”Earlier, she wanted to hit every ball,” Bilthre says. “I asked her to work on her patience and made her meditate. During matches we asked her to look at us in the dugout after every ball and we used to tell her using gestures that she needed to bat calmly, patiently. Then she started to play according to what we said, and that became a habit for her. Until the batter develops such a mindset, they won’t bat well. Now it is an inherent skill – we need not tell her anymore how to play in what situation.”An example of this was seen in the U-23 Women’s One Day Trophy quarter-final last season. Against Bengal Goud walked in with MP 106 for 5 in the 35th over. She scored a restrained 42-ball 46 to help them to 182 for 9, a total that was not enough for a win. But it is a knock that Goud remembers proudly.”My [natural] instinct is to bat in a T20 template even in the one-day format. When I go to bat in a 50-over game, my team-mates hope that I don’t play some [weird] shot,” she says. “In the U-23 one-dayers [quarter-final] last year, my team was hoping I didn’t throw my wicket away since we had lost quick wickets. At that time, I thought I shouldn’t do something different, since we had a lot of overs left. I played the waiting game, but then hit the balls that were in the slot.” Offspinner Piyali Ghosh went for two sixes over cover, Goud’s favourite shot.To date, she and Bilthre talk before and after every game. The topics range from tactical and technical stuff to “motivational chats”. At Warriorz, Saima Thakor has been Goud’s go-to, helping her understand match simulation and bowling under different situations.Around the country, one of the effects of the WPL has been an increase in the number of girls joining formal training academies. Bilthre’s academy has also seen a similar influx and he attributes it to Goud’s rise. “There has been a difference after Kranti’s progress. She is a local; everyone knows her. So people believe if she can get to the state and WPL team from my academy, then even they should give it a shot.”Goud’s progress has shown that even girls in villages can, and absolutely should, play cricket.

Spirit and togetherness shine through at Lord’s in a victory that unites the past, present and future of South African cricket, and South Africa itself

Firdose Moonda16-Jun-20257:27

Bavuma: We’ve wiped all doubts with the way that we’ve played

The Lord’s air sizzled with South African spirit.I want to explain that better, but as someone who has always struggled with identity – a third-generation South African of Indian heritage and a child of the late Apartheid/early democratic era – I don’t know if it’s mine to explain.It’s a deep belief (hope is too light a word, knowledge too strong) that anything is possible.This is the blessing and the curse of being a South African of my generation: our parents and grandparents did not think they would live to see the end of segregation and we are still bungling our way through to proper unity. But we believe it’s possible because there are some things that always told us it could be. Sport, especially in the last six years since the Springboks won their third Rugby World Cup, is one of them.On the fourth morning at Lord’s, as Temba Bavuma and Aiden Markram walked out down the pavillon steps, 69 runs away from history, I was on the outfield as a commentator for the BBC’s and I lingered longer than my colleagues. That’s when I felt it. And breathed it in. As the fans in the Compton and Edrich Stands drew the pair onto the pitch with their cheers, it was like a magnetic field had enveloped us. Our time was here.The next two hours and 16 minutes were fraught. The crowd roared as Bavuma blocked the first ball and then the second. I yelped when the third hit him on the pad, involuntarily and to the giggles of those around me. Behaviour like that is usually frowned upon in the press box but they let me have it, because all the world’s cricket press knows how long South Africa have waited. Mistakenly, they also thought we all wanted them to win every time. Spoiler alert: some of us didn’t, at least at first.A lot of people involved in cricket will tell you that cricket has been part of their lives for a long time, including me. I never played but grew up in a cricket-loving family and community, who saw sport as intensely political. My father and uncles (our mothers and aunts didn’t play) recognised how sport was used as a tool by the Apartheid regime to sideline people of colour. It was an act of rebellion, as well as a chance to have some fun, to stay involved. That’s what “board” cricket was about.An emotional Keshav Maharaj celebrates the win with Lungi Ngidi•ICC/Getty ImagesThe South African Cricket Board organised cricket among people of colour, as opposed to the South African Cricket Union, which was the white administrative body. Board cricket was serious and competitive but often played in substandard facilities and some records have been lost. I was a child but I remember board matches feeling like “our place”, where we could just be and not be judged. I had the opposite feeling when I first started attending matches after unity, as someone from a previously disadvantaged race group. When unity came in 1992 and the Board got swallowed by the Union, there was very little space for people like us, and it left us bitter. Many of us grew up supporting India, Pakistan and West Indies, who looked like us, and actively disliked the South Africa team.Cassim Docrat, an administrator from the Board, who did find a place in the Union, often reminds me that the decision to come together was rushed, and for the benefit of white cricket to get back to the international stage. Considering how few players of colour made it to the national team in the first 25 years of readmission, it’s difficult to disagree with him.

I’ve allowed myself to wonder if it was always supposed to take 27 years, and scolded myself for daring to compare the length of Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment with South Africa’s trophy drought

I was one of those who found a place on the periphery, in what was then a white-dominated and male-dominated space. By the mid-2000s, I was a teenager and I started working in cricket, as a scorer. Shukri Conrad was the Lions coach when I made it to the Wanderers score box, where I spent a handful of happy years doing ball-by-ball commentary for Cricinfo before moving into the editorial space. So it’s not just that cricket has occupied the major part of my life, Cricinfo has too. It’s through them that I have had a front-row seat to South Africa’s performances since 2009, a close-up to some celebrations and much heartache.The 2012 tour to England is my highlight, especially as Graeme Smith won the hearts of the nation with his century in his 100th match as captain, and by bringing his new-born daughter Cadence to Lord’s, where South Africa won the mace for the first time.Smith was also part of the broadcast team for this final and we’ve been exchanging little comments throughout the Test, increasingly with more stress in our voices. For a few minutes on the fourth morning, while Tristan Stubbs battled, we tried to distract ourselves by discussing where Cadence will go to high school. That’s how much time has passed.Graeme Smith and Vernon Philander were key parts of the 2012 South Africa team that attained the No. 1 Test ranking•Getty ImagesThe 2015 World Cup semi-final is an obvious lowlight, both because of the result, and the race-based selection interference which caused a major loss of trust in the administrators, but there have been others. Waking up to see that South Africa had lost to Netherlands at the 2022 T20 World Cup, the 2023 ODI World Cup semi-final and 2024 T20 World Cup final the most recent.Of those, the 2023 defeat stands out because of the controversies around Temba Bavuma. He played the match with a strained hamstring and though that didn’t have much impact on the eventual result, was made to shoulder most of the blame. Cricket clearly has a sense of humour because Bavuma also batted in this match with the same injury and is now being hailed a hero.Hearing his name, chanted to the tune of “Seven Nation Army”, around Lord’s showed how much South African cricket has changed. It helps that the expat community, especially, has fallen in love with Springbok captain Siya Kolisi and embrace his black excellence. It also helps that Kolisi has won two World Cups. I’ve always felt sorry for Bavuma for being in Kolisi’s shadow and when I heard the Lord’s crowd, I could see him stepping out of it. He was ready, and I knew that from the interviews he had done pre-match, in which he spoke openly about being labelled a product of transformation (I contributed to it with the 2016 piece I did on his century) had been a handbrake on his career. I was sorry for the crudeness, but I also had a job to do, and I know we can’t escape race. Bavuma also now knows that. He understands his role in the bigger picture, as does that squad as a whole, and there are some very sombre reasons why.On the final morning of the victory over Pakistan that secured South Africa’s qualification for this final, batting coach Ashwell Prince lost his wife Melissa to cancer. She was 40 years old and beloved in South African cricket circles. Her death provided a completely different perspective to what was happening in front of us: just a game, with consequences, but clearly nothing as serious as what was happening in Prince’s life. It’s not that we stopped caring about the result, but we understood that there were important things going on. Three months later, Conrad lost his father, a former cricketer.A delighted Shukri Conrad and Kagiso Rabada after the win•ICC/Getty ImagesWhen Prince gave his batting talk to the team ahead of the final, he referenced those losses. Real, raw, heart-shattering losses. A game of cricket? He can get over that. But raising his three young sons alone, wishing for Melissa’s presence at every milestone and even every ordinary moment? There’s no getting over that. So, though the match matters and everyone is expected to do everything they can to win it, other things matter far more. It’s with that in mind that South Africa approached the final.Still, it can be difficult in the moment not to think winning is all that matters, both as a professional sportsperson and, by the looks of it, as a diehard fan. I’m not quite that (and I can’t be as a journalist) but I also wanted the win badly, partly so I’d have something different to write but mostly because I had that feeling all Test; that belief that this was it.When Bavuma was dismissed my heart sank. Not another mess-up for him to explain. I couldn’t watch Stubbs bat. He seemed so out of his depth. He’s a kid. He’ll get there. With 20 runs to get, I started to get serious about what was about to happen, what I’d need to say, what I’d need to write. I didn’t even realise when Markram was dismissed because of the non-reaction from the Australians. Kyle Verreynne’s awkward ramp made me grimace, and he told us afterwards he didn’t know what he’d been thinking, but by then they were on the verge. On screen, I saw Smith, barely able to contain himself as the winning runs loomed.They came with a drive and a wave of emotion like nothing I’ve experienced at a sporting venue. South Africa, rejoice!Related

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On air, I tried to remember all the names I wanted to mention, to pay homage to the generations of cricketers that wanted this victory deeply: Barlow and Procter; Pollock and Kallis; Amla and Philander. Bacher’s came out easily. A divisive figure among people of my parents’ generation, for his role in supporting rebel tours, he has become a dear friend and his recent, severe illness has been on my mind for months. Not everyone approves of my relationship with Bacher. To me, it’s proof that we are not our parents, and that there is a space to see someone as a human first. I look forward to explaining how the WTC works to him. He’d asked me a few months ago and we didn’t have the time, but now I’ll just say South Africa won and I don’t think he’ll have too many more questions.Most of the rest of the names were more recent, men whose careers I had covered and some of whose struggles I’d seen. Makhaya Ntini stands out. He retired a few years after my career began and was always reluctant to talk about the experience of being the only black African in the squad until just before the Social Justice and Nation Building hearings of 2021, when he found his voice and told his story.The hearings had their flaws but they cracked South African cricket open and let the light in. We gave ourselves the space to talk about our experiences. Personally, covering the SJN gave me an agency I was too scared to take hold of before. It reassured me that my community’s story, however small in cricket, also mattered, that the things I had endured, as a woman of colour in the press box, also mattered and that all the attempts I’d made to amplify the voices of players of colour were worth it.One of my earlier pieces was about the two men of colour, Hussein Manack and Faiek Davids, who travelled with South Africa’s first post-readmission side to India. Manack’s father, Aboo, has collected and kept a meticulous history of cricket among our people, the Johannesburg-based South Africans of Indian heritage. I will stop putting off plans to go and see it, and maybe even digitise it. When I thought of who the Lord’s victory was for, I also thought of Aboo Manack, a contemporary of my late father.Aiden Markram gets the party started with a friend in the stands•PA Images via Getty ImagesThen I looked around and I saw little Milan Maharaj running in the opposite direction from where her father, Keshav, was calling her and I smiled through the tears I was also trying to hide. I saw what you saw as Bavuma held his son Lihle in one arm and the mace in the other. As Ian Smith put it, “The two most important things in his life.” And it felt right. It felt like South African spirit.I’ve allowed myself to wonder if it was always supposed to take 27 years, and scolded myself for daring to compare the length of Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment with South Africa’s trophy drought. I remember, very vaguely, February 11, 1990 when Mandela was released and addressed the world from the Cape Town city hall and I know, from many readings of his speech, that what stuck with me was that he said we had reached a point on the march to freedom that was “irreversible”. He was right. Here we are. Six democratic elections later, and we have also ended the rule of Mandela’s former party in what is hailed as a triumph for peaceful power transition.South African cricket feels like it reached that same point on June 14, 2025. It’s not that they overturned three decades of near-misses or proved themselves under pressure. It’s that they did it together. Or as we would say, “together-together”.Those who know South Africans know we like to repeat words when we’re trying to emphasise them. “Now-now”, which is more now than now; “sure-sure”, when we want to be, well, sure of something. “Together-together” is not just the together of the squad and the support staff and the spectators, but the together that includes the past, the present and the future. The together that my generation believes is possible, even though there are still so many things that divide us.Breathe Mzansi. We’re all right.

The India fast bowler was one of the main reasons the fifth Test entered its final morning, and he put in a match-winning performance

Nagraj Gollapudi04-Aug-20253:04

Bangar hails ‘Herculean effort’ from Siraj

Mohammed Siraj is a massive Cristiano Ronaldo fan. His “siu” celebrations make that quite clear. So, on the final morning of the fifth Test against England, it was CR7 who was on Siraj’s mind after he woke up restless at 6am instead of the usual 8am.In a way, Siraj was responsible for the Test entering the final day; he had caught Harry Brook at long leg but stepped on the boundary to concede six on Sunday. Brook went on to score a century and have what seemed like a match-turning partnership with Joe Root. But Siraj was also responsible for the match being poised on a knife edge, delivering two long and amazing spells of fast bowling on tired legs with an old ball.So, with England needing 35 to win the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, and The Oval colosseum filling rapidly despite it being Monday morning, the gladiator in Siraj wanted to leave his mark. England had four wickets in hand, albeit one was Chris Woakes with arm in sling, but Siraj had belief.Related

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“I usually wake up at 8am, but today I woke up at 6am. I told myself I can do it today. I went on Google and searched for this image,” he said at the press conference after the match, raising his phone to show Ronaldo’s picture with “BELIEVE” written above it. “I downloaded the image, and made it the wallpaper. So belief is very important.”Belief is what allowed Siraj to bounce back from the mistake of reprieving Brook on 19. He said it was a “game-changing moment” when Brook got away and went into T20 mode to nearly take the Test away from India. But Siraj did not let that setback defeat him. “But I’m a senior bowler. I will not let my shoulder drop.”He told himself things happen, and moved on quickly. Shubman Gill, his captain, sitting next to him at the press conference after India’s win, quipped that if Siraj had held the catch, he could have saved everyone a lot of stress.”Also, if you had taken the catch, [I’m] thinking [it] would have been too easy for us,” Gill said as Siraj broke into a chuckle like the rest of the room.5:30

Gill on Oval win: ‘Makes you feel the journey is worth it’

Belief underpins the Siraj story, which started with a tennis ball in his late teenage years before he was spotted, nurtured and developed by former India quick and fast-bowling coach Bharat Arun. Combining belief with skill, Siraj has, along with Jasprit Bumrah, quickly grown into India’s most dependable fast-bowling duo in the longest format. For the second successive day, Siraj showed his sharp bowling intellect. He applied pressure from the first ball, delivering mostly outswingers, pitching on a good length and on the fifth- or sixth-stump line, and moving the ball away to challenge the England batters to take a risk.The batter’s problems were exacerbated by Siraj’s ability to cut the ball sharply into the pads with the wobble seam: to play him as a swing bowler, or a hit-the-deck bowler, which Siraj, in a chat with Dinesh Karthik on Sky Sports, said he was? He did not relent even for a minute until he had knocked back Gus Atkinson’s off stump with a 143kph yorker – just like he had hit Zak Crawley’s off stump with a similar ball to end play on day three.Siraj, who won the Player-of-the-Match award for his nine wickets at The Oval, bowled 185.3 overs in the series to finish as the leading wicket-taker with 23 wickets. After the win, Siraj bounced around the ground with the ball in hand, thanking the fans, and arrived at the press conference flashing a big smile. High on dopamine, he showed no trace of the toil he has had for the last two months.5:16

Harmison: Siraj never looked like running out of steam

“Body is fine right now because it is almost 187 overs,” Siraj said when asked whether he felt exhausted. “But [when] you play for the country, you give everything. Don’t think too much [whether] you bowl the sixth over or you bowl your ninth over. I don’t care. I believe you bowl every ball for your country, not for yourself. [When] you play for the country, give it everything. Rest doesn’t matter.”Siraj had coped with an extremely heavy workload during India’s previous five-Test series too – the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia. India lost that series 3-1 despite Bumrah’s record-breaking numbers, as he took 32 wickets. But Siraj, who had bowled 157.1 overs in that series, the most for India, also took 20 wickets at an average of just over 31. Siraj said his role in Australia was different to that in England, where he was the leader of the attack with Bumrah playing only three of the five Tests.”In Australia, while Jassi [Bumrah] was performing, my only job was to bowl in partnerships and build pressure, and not try something else – because then there is a potential to leak runs, and that could build pressure on us,” he said. “As for my improvement, I always believe in my bowling that I can take a wicket in any situation. I don’t mind whether I am bowling the first spell or eighth. I just need to give 100%. I have never run after results. Rather [I’m] focused on the process of how to build pressure by bowling in partnerships.”3:04

Bangar hails ‘Herculean effort’ from Siraj

Siraj has been part of several memorable moments in Indian cricket. He was part of the team when Ajinkya Rahane’s India triumphed at the Gabba in 2020-21 to win the series in Australia 2-1. He felt this drawn series in England would be ranked slightly higher, though.”I will rate it higher because [of] the way we have fought throughout this series, with each Test going into the fifth day,” he said. “There was a lot of belief in this dressing room, and everyone believed this morning [that] we would win this match.”The Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy has been a series full of unforgettable moments. Two of its defining images are of Siraj: one on his haunches at Lord’s after being bowled by Shoaib Bashir, and another of him covering his face in the fading light on an overcast Sunday at The Oval after letting Brook off.”I don’t know why I am in these moments,” he said. “At Lord’s, unfortunately, I couldn’t finish. But the almighty clearly had something good written for me in his mind, and that’s why I am here at this moment, and I could take the wickets in the end.”Siraj knows exactly why he is where he is – bowling India to one of their most famous victories, and their narrowest, by a margin of six runs.”Stay honest to your game,” he says. “Believe in yourself. Without belief, nothing can happen.”

Spin-friendly pitches and toss wins have revived Pakistan’s home record, but concerns remain over the long-term consequences of the formula

Danyal Rasool16-Oct-2025Half of their home Tests. After going four years and 11 Tests at home without a win – the longest streak for the traditional top eight Test sides this century – Pakistan’s bar was set low: at least win the games where they won the toss and consequently enjoyed the best of batting conditions. It left them even more vulnerable when the coin landed the other way, but then again, they’d won four of 11 tosses in those Tests, losing two games and drawing the others.Pakistan’s decision to play on a used track in Multan a year to the day ago birthed the spin tracks that have become an identifiable feature of Test cricket in the country of late. It is an idea they pushed to its caricatured limit in a series against West Indies, where the surfaces deteriorated so much Pakistan captain Shan Masood called the conditions “too extreme”. But, whatever the criticism of Pakistan’s methods, there is no doubting their effectiveness: Pakistan have won each of the Tests where they called correctly at the toss, plus one against England after losing it. After 11 Tests without a win, four of the last five home Tests have ended in triumph.For all the defiance that Pakistan have outwardly projected about there being no good or bad ways to win Test matches, this was a tactic borne out of necessity than choice, and one that still provokes debate among the media and fans alike. Over the past week in Lahore, when Azhar Mahmood came to talk to the media, he had to fend off questions about whether Pakistan had given up on any hopes of winning away Test matches at all; they have lost their last five. Masood, meanwhile, was asked whether fast bowling would die off in the next generation with Pakistan stacking their line-up with spinners to exploit the turn on rapidly disintegrating surfaces. The fans have enjoyed the sugar hit of the wins, but like all sugar hits, also worried about the long-term consequences for the game’s health.Related

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Plot intact, result missing: South Africa's Test revival still a work in progress

Masood's 20-wicket masterplan pays off as Pakistan learn to win differently

It all detracted from what happened in Lahore this week: Pakistan, who finished bottom of last year’s WTC, beat South Africa, who won the whole thing. And while they did so on a palpably spin-heavy wicket, it was by no means too far removed from Test strips prepared everywhere across the subcontinent these days.Though Pakistan’s 161-run second wicket stand before tea on the first day established a beachhead from which they kept South Africa at bay for the next three days, they could never quite deliver the landing blow they managed fairly quickly against England in Multan last year, or the West Indies in January. South Africa gritted their way to a first-innings response that kept them in touch, and their fourth innings outscored Pakistan’s third, the first time that has happened since Pakistan turned to spin tracks at home.That, partially, is down to South Africa being a better Test side than England, West Indies, or for that matter, Pakistan in most conditions. But at the same time, the Lahore wicket refused to open up to Noman Ali and Sajid Khan with the same alacrity as Multan and Pindi have over the past year. It required Shaheen Shah Afridi to break open the game for Pakistan in the fourth innings, initially to snap the burgeoning partnership between Tony de Zorzi and Ryan Rickelton, Pakistan’s bete noires in the first innings, on the fourth morning, and later to polish off the last three wickets with a reversing ball, coming around the wicket to the right-handers to bring the ball in late.Shaheen Shah Afridi played a key role in Pakistan’s win in the first Test•Getty ImagesFor South Africa, too, there was encouragement when they turned to the elite fast bowling of Kagiso Rabada, whose figures belied the menace he carried both with new ball and old. It took him just three balls into the Test to find swing into the right-hander Abdullah Shafique and get his first wicket, and he was far more dangerous than any of South Africa’s trio of finger spinners for the first two sessions. He repeatedly threatened early through Pakistan’s second innings, just missing out on snaring Babar Azam for a duck with HawkEye deemed a lovely middle-stump ball seaming away to be going too high. Later, he would get his man with a vicious nipbacker. Wiaan Mulder bowled just two and was never going to have the same impact, but Pakistan appear to want quality swing bowling to count for something in Tests at home.If anything, South Africa, perhaps spooked by what they saw in Multan in January, outflanked Pakistan in the spin department, feeling three outright fingerspinners. Pakistan, who have spent this time of Test drought gently finessing their home formula, went just with their trusty two of Noman and Sajid. Instead, they tried to manufacture a role for their historical strength – pace bowling combined with reverse swing – and fielded both Afridi and, for his first first-class game in two years – Hasan Ali.Masood called them Pakistan’s “best exponents of reverse swing” when the ball ages, which it does fairly quickly on the strips Pakistan prepare. While Hasan was a statistical footnote in this game, bowling ten wicketless overs across the two innings, Masood strongly hinted he would front up alongside Afridi in Pindi next week once more. Spinroads may be their bread and butter for now, but Gaddafi against South Africa perhaps also began to illuminate an eventual path to a more harmonious balance, a quiet transition from a home season whose success hinges on the flick of a copper disc on a patch of underwatered mud.

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ESPNcricinfo staff25-Sep-2025