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LAHORE, Pakistan: Fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi grabbed three wickets and star batter Babar Azam hit a half-century to guide Pakistan to a four-wicket win over South Africa in the second Twenty20 international.
Shaheen took 3-26 to restrict South Africa to 139-9 before Azam’s 47-ball 68 helped Pakistan overhaul the target for the loss of six wickets in 19 overs for a 2-1 series win in Lahore.
South Africa won the first match by 55 runs in Rawalpindi while Pakistan took the second by nine wickets, also in Lahore.
A full house of 32,000 at Qaddafi Stadium cheered the home boy Azam when he cracked three successive boundaries off Ottniel Baartman to reach his 37th half-century — his first after 13 T20I innings.
Azam and Salman Agha  lifted Pakistan during a solid 76-run stand for the third wicket after Saim Ayub  and Sahibzada Farhan  fell by the seventh over.
Azam smashed nine boundaries but his dismissal to pacer Corbin Bosch put Pakistan in a spot of bother with Hasan Nawaz  and Mohammad Nawaz  falling in quick succession.
Usman Khan, six not out, hit the winning single.
“I am happy at the come-from-behind series win,” said the skipper Agha. “We were 1-0 down so it was a great effort by the players to win the next two.”
South African skipper Donovan Ferreira rued his side’s batting.
“We lost wickets in clusters and didn’t score much, but credit to the bowlers to keep it tight,” said Ferreira. “It was a great learning for us.”
South Africa, sent in to bat, slipped to two down without a run as Shaheen dismissed Quinton de Kock and Lhuan-dre Pretorius — both without scoring — off the second and third balls of the match.
It became three down without a run, but Dewald Brevis overturned a leg-before decision off the fifth ball.
The reprieve helped him add 38 for the third wicket with Reeza Hendricks to revive the innings, before debutant Usman Tariq broke the stand, getting Brevis caught off his second ball.
Brevis hit two sixes in his 22-ball 21.
Hendricks and Ferreira  added 34 for the fifth wicket.
Hendricks, top-scorer with a 36-ball 34 with two boundaries, holed out in the 15th over off Tariq, who finished with 2-26.
It was left to Bosch to help South Africa reach a fighting total with 30 not out.

RIYADH: World No. 2 Iga Swiatek began her quest for a second WTA Finals trophy with a 6-1 6-2 win over Australian Open champion Madison Keys in their round robin clash at the season-ending championships on Saturday.

The 2023 champion made a fast start in the Riyadh showpiece, winning 12 of the first 14 points to take a 3-0 lead as a rusty Keys struggled to find rhythm on serve in her first match since a stunning US Open first-round defeat in late August.

Swiatek continued to pile the pressure on her American opponent, who looked out of sorts in her first appearance in the season finale since her debut in 2016, and the Pole raced away to take the opening set dropping only one game.

The pair swapped breaks at the start of the second set, but an untimely double fault from Keys handed the advantage back to Swiatek, who made no mistake from there to wrap up the victory on serve in only 61 minutes.

The WTA Finals, which features the top eight singles players and doubles teams in the world, has a record prize pool of $15.5 million and offers 1,500 points. The tournament culminates with the finals at King Saud University Sports Arena on Nov. 8.

On Sunday, the top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka will begin her bid for a maiden WTA Finals title when the Belarusian takes on two-times major finalist Jasmine Paolini of Italy in the Steffi Graf Group before holder Coco Gauff meets fellow American Jessica Pegula.

Unlike in the previous two editions of the tournament, the year-end world No. 1 ranking will not be up for grabs with US Open champion Sabalenka assured of finishing on top after building a 1,675-point lead over Swiatek heading to Riyadh.

Elsewhere, Canadian ninth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime boosted his chances of qualifying for the season-ending ATP Finals with a 7-6(3) 6-4 victory over Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik in the semifinals of the Paris Masters on Saturday.

The US Open semifinalist leapfrogged Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti to eighth place in the ATP Race to Turin standings and could secure his second ATP Finals appearance after 2022 if he wins Sunday’s final.

The 25-year-old will face either four-time Grand Slam champion Jannik Sinner or world No. 3 Alexander Zverev in the title showdown.

“I’m so happy. A Masters 1000 final sounds so good. You don’t play those finals every week. Hopefully, I can go all the way and get the title,” Auger-Aliassime said.

“But in terms of today, you get into a Masters and every match is tough ... You’re always kind of curious to see how your game is going to match up.

“I have deep self-confidence in my game; I know what I can do against the best players in the world but you still have to go and execute. Today I did really well and I’m happy with the result.”

The opening set was a serving clinic from both players, with neither conceding a break or even a break point. Locked at 6-6, the set went to a tiebreak, where Auger-Aliassime seized a 4-2 lead and closed it out comfortably.

In a scrappy second set, 13th seed Bublik started brightly, breaking Auger-Aliassime early to take a 2-0 lead. However, the Canadian world No. 10 responded immediately by breaking back, drawing frustration from Bublik, who smashed his racket.

Bublik recovered to take a 4-1 lead, but Auger-Aliassime came to life, reeling off five straight games to seal his place in the final in one hour and 36 minutes.