CAPE TOWN, Feb 20: Pakistan team is confident of upstaging England in their crucial Group ‘A’ day-night fixture at the Newlands on Saturday to take a further step towards qualfying for the Super Six stage in the World Cup.

“We are confident and hope that we will upstage England and carry on towards the next round,” said Pakistan captain Waqar Younis.

Pakistan, beaten by defending champions Australia by 82 runs due to some wrong selection and playing a bowler short, beat minnows Namibia in their second game.

England, on the other hand struggled to beat Namibia and Jan-Berry Burger nearly caused havoc before Alec Stewart-led England carried the day by 55 runs.

Meanwhile, Pakistan team took a day off and was enjoying a cruise to Robben Island in Cape Town. They will hold a practice session in the night to have the feel of the lights at the Newlands, wrongly remembered for Pakistan’s lowest score of 43 some ten years ago.

Pakistan is thinking on the lines of entering the match with two spinners — off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq and leg-spinning all-rounder Shahid Afridi.

In their recent head-to-head clashes Pakistan have an edge, having won seven of their last ten encounters against Nasser Hussain’s men. Waqar took a career best 7-36 when the two sides last met at Headingley, two years ago, a match Pakistan won by default after crowd invasion.

Also under focus will be Wasim Akram who needs two more scalps to become the first man ever to take 500 wickets in One-day Internationals. He has been the main weapon for Pakistan, taking three early bwickets against Australia before Andrew Symonds thrashed them.

And then against Namibia he completed his 50 wickets in World Cup history, recording Pakistan’s best World Cup figures of 5-28.

“I am enjoying the World Cup as if I am playing the first World Cup, the only difference is that now I know how to bowl and where to bowl,” said Wasim.

England coach Duncan Fletcher urged his team to put up a better show and called struggle against Namibia as a “wake-up call”.

England too are in a tight corner and in a must-win situation after they forfeited four points by boycotting their Feb 13 game against Zimbabwe over security fears and on moral grounds against President Robert Mugabe’s hardline policies.

“People said it was an advantage easing into this competition, but there is always a flip-side,” said Fletcher.

England have injury worries with captain Nasser Hussain (stiff neck), all-rounder Ian Blackwell (bad back) and slow left-armer Ashley Giles (sore throat).

All three will be reassessed before the game.

“We thought that if Nasser’s neck was serious then he had a good chance of missing the Pakistan game,” said Fletcher.

The pitch at the Newlands is slow and is likely to help slow bowlers.

Pakistan’s main worries lie in their batting with Saeed Anwar’s return-to-international-cricket not having borne any fruits while Inzamam-ul-Haq, considered the linchpin, has scores of six and four in the two matches.

All-rounder Shahid Afridi also flopped badly in the match against Australia while Yousuf Youhana failed to materialise on the good starts in both the games.

Pakistan must bat well if they want to win against England and any slackness in that area may well cost them the match.