Proteas back on song

The start of SA's one-day series against Pakistan in Bloemfontein yesterday was written up as the return of the big guns. But Colin Ingram, Rory Kleinveldt and Ryan McLaren stole the thunder of returning giants like Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla.

Ingram's perfectly measured 105 not out took the Proteas to a total of 315/4. Then Kleinveldt claimed a career-best 4/22 and McLaren took 3/19 to dismiss Pakistan for 190 and clinch victory by 125 runs.

That answered some of the questions raised by the poor showing of an inexperienced SA side in a T20 international in Centurion a week ago, which the visitors won by 95 runs.

"We've got some confidence about now, which we will keep," said satisfied captain AB de Villiers. "We had a very good performance with a lot of pressure."

Ingram's ton was his second against Pakistan and his second in Bloemfontein. He scored his first, a career-best of 124, on his one-day debut against Zimbabwe in Bloem in October, 2010. But he has struggled to stay in a side that is not short of quality top-order batsmen.

Pakistan's attack comprised two frontline seamers, Junaid Khan and Umar Gul, and four spinners. SA's batsmen showed patience against the slow men and exploited the gaps on the biggest ground in the country to score 188 runs in the 31 overs they bowled.

"There's a lot of space on the ground; space to place twos and to place fours," Ingram said.

Smith and Amla gave the home side a solid enough start in their opening stand of 72.

Their dismissals brought De Villiers to the fray to join Ingram, and the runs flowed - 120 of them off 124 balls for the third wicket.

De Villiers looked on course for a century before, on 65, he hit Saeed Ajmal straight to extra cover.

Faf du Plessis' industrious 26 helped Ingram maintain the momentum - the 40th over contained 21 runs - before Farhaan Behardien drilled 34 not out off 14 balls to push SA past 300.

Pakistan's reply was a mish-mash of innings that failed to launch, thanks to an SA attack that, despite being without Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, proved that it had what was needed to keep dangerous batsmen at bay.

Misbah-ul-Haq's laboured 38 was Pakistan's top score, but it was Shahid Afridi's 34 that put smiles on the faces of the Pakistani contingent in a crowd of more than 12 200.

Playing in his 350th ODI, Afridi faced just 16 balls and hammered two fours and three sixes - which took him to 301 ODI sixes.