Mickey Arthur, Head coach of the Pakistan Cricket Team, is confident that his team can put South Africa under pressure and outclass the hosts in the upcoming campaign on his birth soil.
The Men in Green are heading into the rainbow nation with the decent home campaign and Arthur said he has a very exciting young team in One Dayers and T20Is, but they are currently trying to build up a Test team, saying the tourists have a good chance this time around in South Africa to turn the table.
Arthur told reporters on Saturday (December 15), “We have a very exciting young team that’s starting to gel well together. 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.”
While Pakistan managed to win six out of 16 Tests and lost nine times in the last two years, their batting will be under heavy scrutiny on the South African pitches, but Arthur, who coached the Proteas between 2005 and 2010, is hoping that his batters will hard and quick here.
The coach further added, “I’ve told our batting group, that they bat better outside the United Arab Emirates (where Pakistan plays its home matches) 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 anymore, cover the bounce, the pace and swing, they play very, very well in these conditions.”
Meanwhile, Arthur has been working hard on Pakistan’s batting but did not like to call the batting failure as their inconsistency. He continued, “I hate the word inconsistency because everything we are trying to do with Pakistan is to make us more consistent and with that comes our training, our structures, our roles and role clarity.”
The coach also lauded his bowling unit saying they can put South Africa under pressure on the back of an impressive array of talent in the upcoming series, comprising with 3 Tests, 5 ODIs and 3 T20Is, starting with the first Test at Centurion from December 26.
Arthur signed off by saying, “Our attack 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.”
(With IOL Sport Inputs)
