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.
James Milner delivered an outswinging corner which fell at the feet of full-back Cranie on the edge of the box and his effort beat Swedish keeper Johan Dahlin and a covering defender to find the net.
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.