Mohammad Yousuf scored a stylish 79 and Pakistan's tail gave their team a late boost before rain washed out the third one-day international against South Africa at St George's Park on Friday.
Pakistan made 245 for eight in a rain-interrupted innings which finished with one ball remaining.
South Africa were unable to start their reply because of rain.
The teams will go into the fourth match in Cape Town today with the five-match series tied at one match each.
The tourists were 217 for eight when rain stopped play after 47 overs. Azhar Mahmood and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan added another 28 when play resumed.
The innings ended bizarrely.
With rain falling, the umpires kept the players on the field with Charl Langeveldt bowling what should have been the last delivery of the innings.
It slipped from his hand, Naved swung at it and it sliced over the slips for six as no-ball was signaled because the ball was too high.
With the rain having become heavy and ground staff running on with covers, the umpires took the players off.
No overs were lost during the first break of more than an hour but further rain meant that overs were being reduced before the match was finally called off after two revised start times had been set, only to be foiled by more showers.
The early part of the match was in contrast to Pakistan's run spree in Durban on Wednesday when they hammered 351 for four to set up a series-levelling win.
Yousuf and Shoaib Malik (41) put on 91 for the fifth wicket. They took Pakistan from a shaky 71 for four to a position where they could launch an assault. But both men were out in quick succession.
Big-hitting Shahid Afridi fell quickly for eight but Abdul Razzaq and Mahmood put on 41 off 38 balls for the eighth wicket before Razzaq was caught behind off Andrew Hall one ball before play was halted for the first time.
Hall, who replaced fast bowler Andre Nel, took four for 35 with his medium pace.
South Africa's bowlers, who took a hammering in Durban, produced a much-improved performance.
Makhaya Ntini gave South Africa an early advantage when he dismissed opening batsmen Kamran Akmal and Imran Nazir in the space of three balls in the sixth over. Both fell to pull shots.
Yousuf followed up an unbeaten century in Durban with another polished innings, keeping the score moving with deft placements on a pitch which proved to be slightly two-paced and not as good for batting as it looked when Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq won the toss.
Hall was somewhat lucky to pick up his first wicket when Younis Khan chased a wide ball and was caught behind. But he bowled intelligently, mixing up his pace and getting reverse swing in the second half of the innings.
Hall played because Nel cut a foot when a soft drink bottle fell on it after the second game.
Nel is not expected to play in the rest of the five-match series which ends in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier