Pakistan might be coming into the tour of South Africa on the back of a confidence-sapping loss against New Zealand but head coach Mickey Arthur remains confident that his men can exceed expectations in the three-Test series.
Although Sarfraz Ahmed and his men were beaten 2-1 by the Kiwis in the UAE, Arthur asserted that the young side was clearly on the up.
“We have a very exciting young team that’s starting to gel well together,’ the Pakistan coach was quoted as saying by the Independent.
“We’ve played unbelievable white ball cricket, our 50-over team is on the up, our T20 has been exceptional, but we are trying to build up a Test team at the moment, it’s young but very exciting. We really think we have a good chance out here,” he added.
The tour will be a homecoming of sorts for Arthur who is South Africa born and has coached the Proteas between 2005 and 2010. Despite their failures in the UAE, Arthur is confident that Pakistan’s batsmen can flourish in South African conditions.
Arthur feels the young side can excel in overseas conditions.
“I’ve told our batting group, that they bat better outside the United Arab Emirates than they do in the UAE. They batted exceptionally well in England. There are some very talented young batters there, who bat on off stump not on leg stump any more, cover the bounce, the pace and swing, they play very, very well in these conditions,” the South African explained.
In the bowling department, pacer Mohammad Amir makes a return to the side after being dropped for the ‘home’ series against Australia and New Zealand. Expressing utmost confidence in his bowlers to do the job, Arthur placed the onus on the batsmen to step up the task against the Proteas.
“Our attack (bowling) is exceptionally skillful in all conditions. We know we have an attack that can comfortably take 20 wickets, our challenge is to score 350, 400…if we can get runs on the board we know we can take 20 wickets in all conditions,” he said.
The first of the three Tests between the two sides gets underway at Centurion on Boxing Day. Prior to that, Pakistan will take on a Cricket South Africa Invitational XI in a three-day warm up game at Benoni which commences on December 19.