Stats: South Africa's horror run in Asia and a rare fourth-innings feast for fast bowlers

2003 - The last time Pakistan beat South Africa in a Test series, before their 2-0 win in 2021. In that series in 2003-04, Pakistan won the two-Test series 1-0. Since then, the two teams played six series before this one, with South Africa winning four and drawing two. In that period, Pakistan had a 2-10 win-loss record against South Africa, their worst against any team.

9 - Consecutive Test defeats for South Africa in Asia. Before the 2-0 defeat here, they lost the last two Tests of the series in India in 2015-16, and then lost 2-0 in Sri Lanka in 2018, and 3-0 in India the following year. There have only been two instances of a team losing more successive Tests in Asia: Bangladesh lost 18 in a row in the early 2000s, when they were new to Test cricket, while West Indies lost 10 in a row between November 1997 and October 2002.

0 - Instances of Pakistan winning back-to-back Tests versus South Africa, before their two wins in this series. They had beaten South Africa by seven wickets in the first Test of the series in Karachi.

2 - Instances of a Pakistan fast bowler taking ten wickets in a match in the last 14 years. Before Hasan Ali's haul of 10 for 114 in Rawalpindi, the only other instance was Mohammad Abbas' 10 for 95 against Australia in Abu Dhabi in 2018. This was also Hasan's first ten-wicket haul in his 11-match Test career.

9 - Wickets taken by Pakistan's fast bowlers in South Africa's second innings - five by Hasan and four by Shaheen Shah Afridi. This is only the fifth instance of Pakistan's fast bowlers picking up nine or more wickets in the fourth innings of a Test in Asia. The last such occurrence was way back in January 2002.

33 - Runs for which South Africa lost their last seven wickets in their second innings. In the last 26 years, there have only been only two innings when they have lost their last seven for fewer runs: against Australia in Cape Town in 2011 they lost seven for 23, and against India in Delhi in 2015, their last seven wickets fell for 32.

227 - Aiden Markram's series aggregate, which included his second-innings 108 in Rawalpindi, his maiden Test hundred in an away Test. Markram's aggregate was easily the best for South Africa in the series, and also his best away series by far. In his two previous away series - in Sri Lanka and India - he had scored 84 runs in eight innings.