But two balls later, Sharma had no need of any assistance from Rauf as he unleashed an absolute beauty at Watson which nipped back, beat the right-hander's outside edge and clipped the off stump with the absolute minimum of impact needed to dislodge the off bail.
Morkel twice beat Collingwood's outside edge and, in between, Pietersen was dropped by a back-tracking Ntini at mid-on after again top-edging an attempted hook, this time off Nel.