Mohammad Hafeez confident about performing well against South Africa – Cricket News Update
Mohammad Hafeez, Pakistan’s T20 skipper, is confident that the Green Shirts will perform well in their upcoming tour of South Africa and claims that his side’s morale is extremely high after dismantling India at their own backyard.
Pakistan are all set to play three Test matches, five One Day Internationals (ODI) and a couple of T20 Internationals against the Proteas, with the first Test scheduled to begin from February 1st, 2013.
The Green Shirts did exceedingly well in their recently concluded tour of India, where they won the ODI series by a margin of two games to one and levelled the two-match T20 battle.
However, the tour of South Africa is going to be a different ball-game altogether as Graeme Smith and company are presently the number one ranked Test team of the world, extremely high on confidence, having recently dismantled Australia and New Zealand.
According to most of the sporting analysts, Pakistan will struggle to taste success against the Proteas because the conditions in South Africa are quite different to those in the sub-continent.
Hafeez, while talking to reporters in Karachi, admitted that playing against the Proteas is going to be a massive challenge but feel that his team will be very well prepared for the tour. The all-rounder also claims that his side is confident of beating
any team after their triumph against the Men in Blue.
"A Test series in South Africa will be challenging because the conditions are different. We played there in 2007 but this time we are carrying an entirely new combination," Hafeez said. "We are going there ten days in advance and have a side match before
the Test so it will give us some good preparation. They have a good combination of batting and bowling but we too are going there after winning our series in India, which has lifted our morale a lot."
While speaking about Pakistan’s bowling strength, the T20 skipper is positive that Junaid Khan and Umar Gul will lead the country’s bowling attack in South Africa and will deliver the goods under pressure.
"We have an emerging bowler in Junaid Khan and then Umar Gul is very experienced," he added.