Summary The first Test between Pakistan and South Africa starts at SuperSport Park on today (Wednesday).
CENTURION (Agencies) - Traditionally known for its pace and bounce, the Centurion pitch, on which the first of the three Tests will be played, has been offering more bite to spinners of late. That was the case in the recently-concluded Mzansi Super League. Its changing nature also made Pakistan head coach, Mickey Arthur, take a notice of it.
Upon arriving in his home country, Arthur had drawn a parallel of the pitch with surfaces in the UAE. "I was watching the Test match last year, and it looked like you were playing in the UAE. The surface was completely bare. I m not sure what s going on over there," he had remarked.
But, the pitch had a significant grass covering on it 48 hours before the toss. The guess is that it will help the pacers in the first half and come to the aid of the spinners in the second. Whenever the pitch starts to offer turn to spinners, Sarfraz Ahmed wants his premier legspinner to wreak havoc. Yasir Shah has been in prime form. In Pakistan s last Test outing, which was against New Zealand in the UAE, Yasir picked up 29 wickets at 19.03 runs apiece in three matches. He also equaled the Pakistan record for most wickets in a Test this season.
Because of the "history" of the Centurion pitch becoming difficult for batting in the fourth innings, Sarfraz desires that his side fields in the last innings. "We have clarity about what we ll do because we have a coach who has coached in South Africa," he said. "If you talk about the history of Centurion pitches the fourth innings is very difficult here. Whoever wins the toss would like to bat first. No one would want to bat in the fourth innings if they re chasing over 200."
Despite Mohammad Abbas s unavailability for the Boxing Day Test, Pakistan s pace attack look pretty decent on paper. Mohammad Amir returns to the side. Hasan Ali picked up form against New Zealand and Shaheen Afridi is turning out to be some find for Pakistan. But, keeping South Africa s trouble against spin in their recent Test series in Sri Lanka, Sarfraz is itching to make the most of their woes by handing the ball to Yasir.
"If you talk about South Africa s Test series against Sri Lanka recently, the pitch was different," Sarfraz said. "All foreign teams struggle there, just like all Asian teams come to South Africa and struggle here. Here, the conditions are different but we do have a world-class spinner. He took 200 wickets in 33 Tests and we know South Africa haven t played a top-quality legspinner in three years. So we have an advantage, we have Yasir Shah, and hopefully they will struggle against him."
