Both batters have been good against spin in Pakistan and give South Africa hope ahead of tours to India and Sri Lanka
Firdose Moonda21-Oct-2025International cricket tours are not research trips but if they were, South Africa would mark the Pakistan Tests as a success because of what it has taught them about their batters. Especially Tony de Zorzi.With a century in Lahore and 55 in Rawalpindi, as things stand, de Zorzi is the series’ leading run-scorer and has kept South Africa in the game in both first innings. Remarkably, de Zorzi has a much higher Test average in the subcontinent – 70.50 – than he does on home soil, where he averages just 14.53. Both his Test hundreds and one of his three fifties have come in Asia and one other in the West Indies, where conditions are also slow and low.It’s all a bit of an anomaly given that de Zorzi grew up on the Highveld and spent the early parts of his career playing on pacy, bouncy strips but has developed a game plan that works in Asia and it’s an obvious one: “Tony is a really good player of spin. He sweeps well, reverse sweeps well and uses his feet well,” Ashwell Prince, South Africa’s batting coach, who has also coached de Zorzi at domestic level, said.He is also willing to be patient, as evident from his early engagements in his innings in Rawalpindi. The first ball he faced, from Sajid Khan, whizzed past the shoulder of his bat as he hung back in his crease in defence. From then, de Zorzi tried to get forward to defend as much as possible and scored only five runs off the first 22 balls he faced. In that, was one that should have got him out. Pakistan did not review an Asif Afridi delivery that was shorter in length, kept de Zorzi on his back foot and spun into his pad. They appealed for a catch at short leg but a review on the lbw would have meant this story may have been about something else entirely. But luck is part of the game and what players do with it can be more important than whether they have it. De Zorzi made it work for him.Three overs after the non-dismissal, he saw an opportunity to change tempo, walked across his stumps and hit Sajid through deep backward square for four. South Africa were scoring at the pedestrian rate of 2.35 runs an over before that shot, and they were closer to three runs an over by the end of the day.Related
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Whether de Zorzi got it right when it came to his balance between attack and defence is a matter of opinion. Prince’s is that de Zorzi, in just his 15th Test, is still discovering how to do things but is learning fast. “I don’t think with three days to go it’s necessary to go a lot quicker but the important thing is for every batter who goes out there to find his natural rhythm of play,” Prince said. “What we try and emphasise is finding your tempo and marrying strong defence with good scoring opportunities. It’s important for all of them to know where their singles are and to understand which kind of boundary options they may be looking at but as far as time is concerned I don’t think there’s any rush.”De Zorzi main scoring shot is the sweep – and according to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, he has scored 35.1% of his 423 runs in Asia using that shot – and he scores mostly square of the wicket. In this innings, 36 off his 55 runs came between point and covers or short fine and midwicket and he scored them off 21 balls. His is a contrasting wagon wheel to his partner – Tristan Stubbs’ – an off-side dominant batter, who is the other player that has passed on the South African report card.Before this Test, Stubbs had got into double figures only once in his last nine Test innings and appeared completely out of sorts. He had been shifted from No. 3 – a position given to him in August last year and then taken away in December – to No.4 to No.5 and his role was unclear. With Wiaan Mulder left out of his Test to accommodate the left-arm seam-bowling allrounder Marco Jansen, Stubbs was pushed back up to No. 3 and showed determination just to stay there.Can Tristan Stubbs become South Africa’s long-term No. 3?•AFP/Getty ImagesHe scored 13 runs off the first 60 balls he faced before de Zorzi played that shot off Sajid and Stubbs followed shit when he shimmied down the pitch to hit Sajid through the covers. Though he still accumulated at a conservative pace, Stubbs found runs when he moved his feet: lunging forward and lowering one knee to sweep Asif over square leg, and occasionally when he advanced on bowlers. The pillar of this innings, though, was defence. Stubbs faced 140 dot balls, only eight fewer than in the knock he played against Sri Lanka in Durban, when he scored 100. This is already his third-longest Test innings by balls faced, 14 short of his knock in Chattogram, where he also scored a century. There will be pressure on him to convert this into three figures too but that isn’t the only goal.At this stage of his career, Stubbs just needs to make a case for where he should bat in the Test team and why and this could be the innings that does that. “He showed great character,” Prince said. “He was a little clearer in his game plan, understood his scoring opportunities and obviously was strong on defence. He’s also been quite positive in terms of his footwork, back and forth and using the crease and when he wanted to hit the ball in the air, there was commitment in that so he’s gone pretty well.”Prince said Stubbs sees being back at No. 3 as a “great opportunity,” but that it doesn’t mean he has the spot back permanently. “We’ve always seen him as a player who’s got a pretty decent game against spin. Whether he continues in that position in the future will be determined by where we play and the conditions that we face.”And that may be South Africa’s biggest lesson about their batting from this trip. Just as Lungi Ngidi was left out of this series so South Africa could stack their squad with spinners, the same thinking can apply to South Africa’s batting line-up and the way they are talking suggests it could. “The No. 3 position would fluctuate in terms of where we are playing,” Prince said. “We have to marry people in terms of horses for courses approach.”In that case, two of the horses for this kind of course have been identified. Given that between the Chattogram Test last year where de Zorzi scored his first hundred and the Lahore one, he had only crossed 30 once in nine Test innings, there is a case to be made that when South Africa play in the subcontinent, de Zorzi should be in the XI but when they are in SENA countries, he may not be. Instead, someone like David Bedingham, who has sat on the bench this series, could be considered then. The same could apply to Stubbs and the inclusion of captain Temba Bavuma, when he becomes available post-injury could then be another talking point.All this information South Africa can use for future trips to the subcontinent, and there are two more of them in this WTC cycle, which makes it valuable. What they will wish is that is what they already had coming into this contest. For Prince, there is still time for South Africa to show they can apply what they have learnt in this match and maybe, to spring a great surprise. “One more big partnership – something close to 100 runs brings us close to Pakistan’s score and the potential is there to get 40 or 50 runs ahead. It might not sound a lot but under these circumstances it could be a lot.”