Sloppy Proteas let Pakistan off hook, must beat Netherlands to progress at World Cup

Shahid Afridi in 2009 and 2010, Shadab Khan in 2022.

There's something about the Proteas and mercurial Pakistani leg-spinning all-rounders when it comes to the ICC T20 World Cup.

On a night where the glass half-full optimists will believe a timely "choke" is out of the way now, South Africa rather spectacularly lost the initiative after a brilliant start to fall short by 33 runs at the SCG in Sydney on Thursday.

They still have their playoff destiny firmly in their hands - Sunday's final outing is against the Netherlands in Adelaide - but there'll be a distinct feeling in the camp that a golden opportunity has been missed to avoid some unnecessary if bearable pressure.

Nonetheless, this is a performance, dogged by some really poor fielding, that should be consigned to the bin as quickly as possible.

It certainly didn't help that they ran into Shadab at his punchy best, a mighty effort of death hitting that rewarded him with a career-high score in T20 internationals.

AS IT HAPPENED | Proteas v Pakistan

Coming in at No 7, the 24-year-old smoked four sixes, two off them off successive Anrich Nortje full tosses, as he flew to a 22-ball 52 that thoroughly chastened a Protea attack that looked so purposeful in the first eight overs.

Wayne Parnell and Lungi Ngidi had combined to dislodge the lynchpin pair of Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam within the powerplay, allowing a gleeful Nortje to summon his express pace to take a further two scalps that reduced Pakistan to 43/4 in the 7th over.

However, in a sign of things to come, that period of dominance was interspersed by Mohammad Haris hitting Kagiso Rabada for 17 in his first over on his way to an entertaining 28 off 11.

His stay was short enough for South Africa to merely shrug it off.

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