Translating plans into action - South Africa look to solve the Asian puzzle

Not for the first time South Africans are having difficult conversations about their team's relationship with the subcontinent. Why can't they bat anywhere near as well there as they do on their albeit different but equally challenging home pitches? Why aren't their spinners, who are more often than not deprived of the chance to show what they can do by South Africa's seaming surfaces, more successful in conditions bespoke for slow bowling?

Where does their confidence go when they set foot on what is, after everything, even if it is a hemisphere, thousands of kilometres and many cultures removed from what they know best, just another cricket ground? The latest episode in this drama unfolded last week in Karachi, where Pakistan won the first Test - South Africa's first match of any kind in the country since October 2007 - by