Daijiworld Media Network

Sharjah, Nov 11: Hello and welcome to the final ODI between the two sides. The teams have moved to Sharjah, where Pakistan dramatically lost the opening ODI by 1 run. Though this game is a dead rubber, the hosts will be looking to solve their batting issues before they travel to South Africa for the return series. It will be intersting to see if the teams make any changes to their playing XIs. Will Vernon Philander finally get a game?

South Africa have won the toss and have opted to bat

de Villiers: We are going to bat first. It looks like a good wicket. We would like to fix all the problems of the previous match. We need to get the basics right again. We have made 3 changes - Steyn, Morne Morkel and Tahir are out; Peterson, Parnell and Philander are in.

Misbah: 'We would have liked to bat first as well. This is a track which will assist the seamers. It will play similar to the first game so we are not concerned. We just have one change - Asad Shafiq misses out, Umar Amin comes in.'

Pitch Report: 'There is not enough grass on the wicket. It will play very similar to the first match of the series. The team batting first will have the advantage as it will slow down later,' reckons Kepler Wessels.

South Africa had already sealed the 5-match series 3-1 with a fantastic win at Abu Dhabi on Friday. Can Pakistan salvage some pride by ending the series on a high? Let's find out as the day progresses.

Teams:

Pakistan (Playing XI): Ahmed Shehzad, Mohammad Hafeez, Sohaib Maqsood, Misbah-ul-Haq(c), Umar Amin, Umar Akmal(w), Shahid Afridi, Sohail Tanvir, Saeed Ajmal, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Irfan
South Africa (Playing XI): Quinton de Kock(w), Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers(c), Jean-Paul Duminy, David Miller, Ryan McLaren, Robin Peterson, Wayne Parnell, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Vernon Philander

The Preview, by Gokul Gopal

Having already taken an unassailable lead, South Africa will be looking for a 4-1 finish when they take on Pakistan in the final match of the ODI series in the UAE. South Africa, who have not lost a single bilateral ODI series so far against Pakistan, kept their unbeaten record intact at Abu Dhabi, and will be going into this game in Sharjah with a lot of confidence. For Pakistan, this game will only be about trying to salvage some pride.

Pakistan: Inconsistency has always been Pakistan's bane and it has hurt them again in this series. Batting has been their main let-down as the Misbah-ul-Haq led side faltered in all the three games they chased. Ahmed Shehzad, who has hit a couple of fifties so far, has given the team good starts but the batsmen down the order have not been able to capitalize on that. Twice in this series - the 2nd ODI and the fourth match - Pakistan have ended up on the losing side despite being in comfortable positions.

Mohammad Hafeez has been a failure at the top of the order while Umar Akmal, Umar Amin, Asad Shafiq and Shahid Afridi have been dismal with the bat so far and the team management will be hoping that they make amends in the final game. What will give the hosts some confidence in terms of batting is that debutant Sohaib Maqsood hit a fine fifty in the previous match while Misbah found form with a half-century. Pakistan will be banking on these two, along with Shehzad, to do well with the bat.

There is not much to be worried about as far as Pakistan's bowling is concerned as Afridi and Saeed Ajmal have done a good job so far and have received support from the likes of Mohammad Irfan, Sohail Tanvir and Hafeez. Pakistan will be expecting them to deliver again while Misbah's side will be hoping for some improvement in terms of fielding.

South Africa: The touring side might have already clinched the series, but they still have some chinks in their armour which they will be hoping to rectify. Graeme Smith's absence at the top of the order might have been neutralized with the return of Hashim Amla, but the Proteas have not been getting the kind of starts they would have hoped for. After successive failures in the first two games, the South African batsmen were a lot better in the third and the fourth game, although there is still room for improvement.

Faf du Plessis and JP Duminy had to rescue their team from a dicey situation in the third game while Quinton de Kock's maiden ODI century was the reason South Africa could post a good total in the fourth match. Some of these individual knocks have lifted South Africa out of trouble but they will still be hoping for a solid and collective performance from the batters and expect the likes of AB de Villiers, David Miller and Hashim Amla to convert starts into bigger scores.

The South African bowlers have been consistently doing a good job in the series and it is because of them that that Proteas have been guaranteed the winner's trophy. Imran Tahir has been the pick of the lot while Ryan McLaren, Morne Morkel and Lonwabo Tsotsobe have also performed well. Dale Steyn, who was rested for the first two games, did an economical job in the third match before picking up a match-winning fifer in the fourth ODI. The Proteas will be expecting their well-balanced and in-form bowling attack to do the job again.

Numbers that matter:
2: The number of wickets Saeed Ajmal needs to take to go past Ravindra Jadeja as the highest wicket taker in ODIs in 2013. The Pakistani off-spinner has taken 45 wickets so far in 24 matches at an average of 20.08 and a strike rate of 29.1.

105: In case AB de Villiers scores these many runs in the fifth ODI, he will join Sourav Ganguly in the second spot on the list of fastest to 6000 runs in ODIs in terms of innings taken. Ganguly got to 6000 in his 147th innings while the fastest to do so was Viv Richards, who reached there in just 141 innings.

Quotes
'We definitely would look to make it 4-1 and that is our main goal and if we do that it would be awesome,' Quinton de Kock.

'There is huge disappointment in the camp over the series loss but we have another match to play,' Sohaib Maqsood.