Challenging pitch, but not dangerous - Rahane

India were clearly not happy with being taken off the field when they were by the match officials, 19 minutes from the scheduled close of day three. They felt the ball that led to the players going off was not unusual but was consistent with how the pitch had played. They felt disadvantaged after they had batted on the "same" pitch, and felt that it didn't seem dangerous to them.

"The wicket was definitely challenging, but if you see our openers batted so well," Ajinkya Rahane said. "The wicket was similar for both teams. Vijay got 25 runs, and he faced 130-140 [127] balls. It was completely the same for everyone. Our approach was that we want to play and win this Test match. When Bhuvi and I were batting, we were not thinking about the wicket. We were just focussing on playing that particular delivery. Yes, the odd ball we got hit on the hand or the glove, but that's the nature of the wicket, we cannot control that."

Both Rahane and Sunil Subramaniam, the India manager, insisted the ball that hit Dean Elgar in the helmet grille was not too far from being a regular bouncer. "I don't think so," Rahane said when asked if there was anything irregular about the ball. "I think the ball was back of a length, a hard length. As our manager mentioned, it kicked off. Slightly more bounce than usual, but if you see the wicket and see the bounce here, it was completely natural. Even when Bhuvi and I were batting, or Vijay was batting against the new ball, we faced the same. It is not dangerous, it is completely similar for both teams."

The teams revealed that the first discussion around the nature of the pitch took place during the tea break, when the match referee met the two captains, but there were quite a few discussions between the umpires and the players, and the umpires looked at the pitch with concern every time a player took a blow. Rahane said the discussions with him were not about whether play should continue or not.

"They were just checking on me, that if I'm okay," Rahane said. "Because I got hit once on my elbow and my glove. They were telling me I can take my time, and [telling me] if you want to call the physio, you can call Patrick [Farhart] and take your time. Don't be in a hurry."

India also made the point that it was a pitch South Africa had asked for. "This is the wicket they prepared," Rahane said. "We also batted, our openers also batted. We struggled a lot, but it is completely similar for both teams so we cannot complain about this wicket. Our aim is to play and win this Test match, and we are looking to play.

"We all knew that when we come to South Africa, we will get wickets like this. Because when we played in India, we prepared turners, so we knew that we'll get wickets like this when we come here. We have to be prepared to play on these kinds of wickets."

Rahane wouldn't get dragged into speculating whether South Africa didn't feel like continuing with the game because of the situation they found themselves in. He also wished Elgar well. "When Hashim Amla got 60-odd in the first innings, no one was talking about that," Rahane said. "Everyone was talking about his innings, and how he played. Unfortunately Dean Elgar got hit on his head, and I hope he's fine. But I don't think the wicket is too dangerous.

"You cannot call it a dangerous wicket just because Elgar got hit. Most of the batsmen got hit, even Amla got hit in first innings, Vijay got hit. Pujara batted well in first innings, Virat batted well, they got hit. We never complained about it being a dangerous wicket. We just said it is a challenging wicket. They prepared this wicket, we never told them to prepare a track like this. They prepared this wicket so we want to play."

South African allrounder Dik Abed dies aged 73

Sulaiman 'Dik' Abed, the prolific South African allrounder who went on to captain Netherlands in the 1980s, died on Friday in the Netherlands aged 73.

He was the youngest of five brothers, all of whom were talented sportsmen. But his cricket career coincided with Apartheid, as a result of which he never got to play for South Africa. The South African Cricket Association (SACA) did ask Abed and another player of colour, the left-arm spinner Owen Williams, to join the team for a tour of Australia in 1971-72 but the government refused to let them go. In any case, both of them declined the offer, and the entire tour fell by the wayside.

Abed, known as a capable batsman and a fast bowler with a fine legcutter, gained a lot of his acclaim playing in the Lancashire Leagues in England, scoring more than 5000 runs and taking over 800 wickets over a 10-year period from 1967 to 1976. At home, he represented the Western Province Cricket Board with great distinction.

Abed eventually settled in the Netherlands and led the team in the ICC Trophy in England in 1982. He also attended several trials with English counties but never got the opportunity to play first-class cricket.

CSA's acting chief executive Thabang Moroe paid tribute to Abed: "On behalf of the CSA Family I extend our deepest condolences to his family, his friends and his many cricketing colleagues. He was an outstanding all-rounder who, like many before and after him, was denied the opportunity to play on the international stage that his talents merited."

Boult takes five-for, Pakistan routed for 74 in huge loss

New Zealand 257 (Williamson 73, Taylor 52, Raees 3-51, Hasan 3-59) beat Pakistan 74 (Boult 5-17) by 183 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

They might be the current Champions Trophy holders, but over the last two years, Pakistan have conceded the highest score in the format's history - 444 at Edgbaston. Today, in Dunedin, they came perilously close to posting the lowest ODI score; it was very much on the cards when they reeled at 32 for 8. In a batting performance so listless that even New Zealand appeared to be embarrassed by the ease with which Pakistan's innings crumbled, the home side rubberstamped their superiority by bowling Pakistan out for 74, winning by a mammoth 183 runs.

Any semblance of a contest was blown to pieces by a sensational opening spell from Trent Boult, who made a mockery of the notion that it was a slow pitch on which bounce was difficult to extract. Azhar Ali was the first to fall. Granted a life two balls earlier, when Santner dropped one at cover, Azhar poked at one outside the off stump and gave first slip a straightforward grab.

Fakhar Zaman had been trying to cut Boult for much of an innings that was destined to be ephemeral. He eventually dragged on. With Hafeez then edging a catch to Ross Taylor at first slip, the contest was over, but the potential for humiliation had only just begun.

The records began to tumble; only on three other occasions since 2006 had a side made less than ten runs in the first Powerplay (Pakistan made 9 for 3 today); only once before had Pakistan lost six wickets for fewer than the 16 they managed today.

Suddenly, the lowest-ever ODI total - 35 - began to be threatened, as batsmen came - each appearing as clueless, as amateur as the last - and met the same fate.

Pakistan's ineptitude could spawn much cricketing literature, but New Zealand's magnificence is far worthier of attention. After Boult and Southee's brilliance, the change-up bowlers backed them up, their foot never leaving Pakistan's throat. There was excellent fielding to run out Babar Azam, whose bat got stuck in the pitch as he attempted to drag it over - an appropriate metaphor for the rut Pakistan have found themselves in since reaching New Zealand shores.

The captain Kane Williamson, whose "ugly" innings of 73 began to look prettier by the minute, also took a splendid catch, diving to his right to hold on with one hand. Sarfraz, who was forlornly going down with his ship, remained till the bitter end, watching as his partners came and went. Mohammad Amir flashed at a few deliveries, but the defeat was too chastening for any Pakistan fan to draw entertainment out of it.

The contest ended in the only way that was appropriate, Boult returning to clean up Hasan Ali with an excellent yorker to complete his five-wicket haul. It put Pakistan out of their misery, and gave New Zealand the series with two games remaining.

At the start of the game, the pitch had played far slower than most expected. In scrappy, turgid conditions for batting, New Zealand's batsmen showed patience and temperament, stringing together several excellent partnerships to put up 257.

Colin Munro and Martin Guptill began like they usually do, each striking a six within the first eight balls. But it soon became evident that that strategy wouldn't be sustainable.

Munro fell in the second over, having misjudged the pace and bounce of a delivery, lobbing it straight up to Sarfraz.

De Villiers changed the game in one over - SA batting coach

At 12 for 3, South Africa were looking for some calm, for someone to absorb the pressure and block out a few overs, for a little bit of good, old-fashioned Test defense. AB de Villiers was not in the mood for any of that and he used the ninth over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar's fifth as he claimed three top-order wickets, to show it.

In five balls, de Villiers drove Bhuvneshwar through the covers twice by smothering the movement with aggression and tucking into the full length. Then, he slashed a pair of short balls through point. With that intent, de Villiers grabbed momentum by the throat, flung it up against a wall and told it, "You are going to turn around." And it obeyed.

"Luckily our phones get taken away otherwise I would have been looking for an Uber to get back to the hotel," South Africa's batting coach Dale Benkenstein said. "They are a quality bowling attack and that stage I was sitting there wondering how we were going to score a run. The genius of AB de Villiers and the tenacity of the captain, that partnership got us back in the game and got that belief back in the change room. I think it was just one over where AB just changed the game. He made the bowlers have to worry about their lengths."

De Villiers started striking at over a run a ball after that over and continued playing aggressively, finding the boundary often and forcefully. He had the perfect foil at the other end in Faf du Plessis, who set up his typical rearguard action and bedded in. Between them, South Africa benefitted to the tune of 104 runs and quickly went from being dominated to dominating. De Villiers' ability to single-handedly change matches is well-documented, but now he seems to be doing it at will in the longer format, where South Africa are trying to play a more proactive brand of cricket.

That much was evident in the way all their batsmen played. Quinton de Kock, Vernon Philander and Keshav Maharaj all looked to get quick runs, not just because South Africa wanted to get India in as soon as possible, but also because they perhaps decided the best form of attack is to simply attack.

"As a general philosophy, as a batter you go out there to score runs, and on a wicket like that you're not going to get many opportunities to, so I would rather they are looking to score and then your last mindset is to leave or defend. They did that well," Benkenstein observed.

This aggressive thinking extended even towards team selection. They opted against the security of seven batsmen, by playing four quicks and a spinner in Maharaj. This meant Temba Bavuma, who has strung up gritty middle-order performances, had to miss out. Benkenstein admitted it was a difficult decision to leave him out, and by extension one of Chris Morris and Andile Phehlukwayo, but explained the need for experience swung the decision that way.

"With AB and Faf back, you've got your top six that all average over 40 in Test cricket," Benkenstein said. "We wanted to go with a strong bowling attack and our best batters at this time. As a group it was felt that was the best team."