As Pakistan is set to face Australia in a three match Test series, Former Australian Captain Steve Smith seems pretty confident and the reason why he came with a statement where he clearly challenged Pakistan. Smith intimated his hopes for pace and bounce from the Perth pitch as he believes that the conditions may provide early seam movement and will get flatter as the game progresses.
In an interview given to Fox Sports, Steve Smith was mentioned saying “I assume it’ll have some decent pace and bounce, which it normally does here. I think there’s a little bit of grass on it … so there may be a bit of seam movement early on and it will probably get a bit flatter as the game goes on. (There) maybe some cracks if the heat stays. We will wait and see and play it by ear each day. It’s something we will try and exploit, I suppose. We look at the wickets we played on in Pakistan and the wickets there didn’t have much pace and bounce, they were very slow, and coming to somewhere where potentially sub-continent players don’t receive as much … bounce, (so) that is something we try to exploit and get those wickets behind the wicket with catches. That usually comes into play quite a bit, so hopefully the boys can get that this week.”
The Above statement clearly states the champion mindset of Steve Smith & Cricket Australia and its pretty evident they are in complete control of their emotions. Pakistan will face Australia in a three-match Test series starting on December 14 at Perth. The second Test will be played in Melbourne from 26th December and then they will shift to Sydney for the third Test which will be played on Jan 3.
Shan Masood will be leading the Pakistan side for the first time and he will look to start his captaincy term with a win against Australia. However, beating Australia on their own turf looks pretty impossible since the records are in favor of Kangaroos since 1999 but one thing is sure the series is gonna be an exciting one.
