South Africa strike in second innings

CAPE TOWN: Robin Peterson hit an aggressive career-best 84 before South Africa's opening bowlers dismissed both Pakistan opening batsman without scoring on the third day of the second Test against Pakistan at Newlands on Saturday.

Pakistan were 25 for two in their second innings at tea, a lead of 37.

Peterson led a fighting performance by South Africa's lower order batsmen as they recovered from an overnight 139 for five to reach 326 all out.

Pakistan's first innings lead of 12 runs was soon shown to be negligible as Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander both took wickets in their first overs.

Mohammad Hafeez was comprehensively trapped leg before wicket by a ball which swung into him. After the briefest of consultations with opening partner Nasir Jamshed he walked off without seeking a review.

In the next over Jamshed fell in similar fashion to Vernon Philander.

After discussion with new partner Azhar Ali he started to indicate he wanted a review but appeared to be told by umpire Steve Davis that he had taken longer than the 15 seconds allowed.

Replays showed the ball would have clipped his bails so the decision would have been upheld.

Overnight batsmen AB de Villiers and Dean Elgar started South Africa's fight back when they took their sixth wicket stand to 55 before Elgar was caught at slip off Saeed Ajmal.

At that stage off-spinner Ajmal had taken all six wickets but he had no further success, taking six for 96.

The left-handed Peterson batted positively from the start, shrugging off a poor run of batting form which had yielded just 15 runs in his previous seven international innings, including five noughts.

He went to his second Test fifty off 73 balls and went on to pass his previous best score of 61 against Bangladesh in Dhaka ten years ago.

De Villiers fell to Mohammad Irfan for 61 in the first over with the second new ball after a seventh wicket stand of 46 with Peterson. But Peterson and Philander (22) added an innings-best 67 for the eighth wicket.

The last two wickets brought another 49 runs before Peterson was last out, caught on the long-on boundary off Mohammad Hafeez.

Peterson made his 84 runs off 106 balls with 15 fours.

The tall Irfan, playing in his first Test, took three for 86 and troubled the batsmen with steep bounce.