Champions or not, South Africa were always going to be judged on this: how they play on pitches specifically prepared to suffocate batters and against sides with serious spinners.
No disrespect to Bangladesh, where South Africa won their first series in the subcontinent in a decade last year and regarded it as their turning point in the WTC campaign, but critics wanted them to take on sterner challenges. The early results in Pakistan are less terrible than they could have been.
For one, South Africa were not bowled out for under 200, which was one of the unspoken fears given how pitches have played in Pakistan most recently. In fact, they are yet to be bowled out though they remain some distance away from challenging Pakistan's first-innings score. Two, is that they had two batters who got themselves to half-centuries and one is still batting. Pakistan had four with fifty-plus scores and two partnerships over 150, so the difference between the two line-ups is measurable but maybe not exactly comparative. With an obvious advantage to the team that bats first, perhaps this can only be judged if roles are reversed in the next match. For now, South Africa will try to survive.
And it's the last of those words that's the most important because there isn't really another to describe what it's like watching them out there except to say that it is a fight. Even when Shaheen Shah Afridi offered up a half-volley for Ryan Rickelton to drive through the covers off the third ball of South Africa's reply, there was the threat of who was to share the new ball and when he got it, Noman Ali showed what he could do. His third ball gripped, turned and flirted with Aiden Markam's outside edge as he lunged forward, missed the ball and almost lifted his back foot. Mohammad Rizwan whipped off the bails for good measure. No damage was done, but that was a warning.
Noman would keep attacking Markram in the same way and would eventually get him caught behind as he tried to play the turn but the ball spun more than he expected. He would also get Mulder, who worked his way to 17 off 46 balls, but then drove with a horizontal bat against a slow, loopy ball and edged to Rizwan. Mulder will question why he played the way he did, but the answer lies in what came before. After he found some rhythm with 11 off his first 15 balls, he couldn't get either Noman or Sajid Khan away. Mulder faced maiden overs from both of them, was being tied down by lack of pace, and showed his frustration with an expansive drive.
At the other end, Ryan Rickelton had got himself to 37 off 73 and would have known that he was responsible for anchoring the innings, especially in the absence of Temba Bavuma. If it was Rickelton's job to employ some of Bavuma's fortitude, it was Tony de Zorzi's to fill his regular captain's shoes, batting at No.4 and knowing he lost his opening berth to Rickelton. What better subplot to add to the tension?
De Zorzi spent the first 33 balls looking like he could get out to every one of them. In one over, Hasan Ali found his outside edge, then beat him with an inswinging yorker and then found the edge twice with the ball going through the gap for four both times. He almost offered Noman a return catch, then inside-edged him just past short leg, and was then given out lbw to an animated Sajid. De Zorzi was ready to depart but Rickelton convinced him to review. He was saved on impact and made it to tea. Immediately after the break, it was Rickelton who had managed to get outside the line to Noman to survive another boisterous appeal.
There were moments, of course, like the reverse sweep that Rickelton got fine of backward point, and the slog over deep midwicket that de Zorzi hit for six or the drag down that got him to his fifty. But for the most part South Africa were driving on a potholed road, trying as hard as possible to avoid the bumps and find a little bit of smooth tar. No car can go on like that without suffering some damage and South Africa's eventually came. A sharp bit of fielding from Babar Azam at slip ended Rickelton's knock and he was the first of four wickets to fall for 26 runs in the space of 10 overs.
South Africa's crumble has not (yet?) been as bad as Pakistan's - they lost three wickets with the score on 199 and three again on 362 in a collapse that eventually became 5 for 16 - but was still "not ideal," according to left-arm spin-bowling allrounder Senuran Muthusamy, who found himself batting at the end of the day after taking a career-best 6 for 117. Muthusamy found himself in the "pretty cool," position of being on a hat-trick twice and did his best to "open up the game," in what he said were the most favourable conditions he had operated in. "It's probably as spin-friendly as I've played in," he said at his press conference.
Which is exactly what South Africa were expecting even before they came to Pakistan. They packed their XI with spinners, which has also given them a full XI who can offer something with the bat. Muthusamy himself has opened the batting 29 times in first-class cricket and scored three hundreds in that position, and has nine red-ball centuries to his name overall. All of them were scored in South Africa, where puffs of dust don't balloon off pitches and bowlers don't turn it nearly as much as Noman and Sajid. Still, he backs himself and those that remain to keep South Africa in it. "It's about bouncing back and finding some resilience again," Muthusamy said. "I thought we did a lot of good today but obviously it wasn't ideal losing those wickets."
In that analysis, many would agree with Muthusamy. The only batter to play a really poor shot was young Dewald Brevis, a prolific talent in his third Test, who hung back in his crease and chipped Sajid to Shan Masood at midwicket. Brevis will make those kinds of mistakes. And South Africa, as a whole, should learn from them.
This series is the first of three in the subcontinent in this cycle with India to come next month and Sri Lanka in early 2027. If South Africa hope to defend their title and show off their championship credentials, they will have to win some of them.