August 27, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 28, 1424

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PESHAWAR, Aug 26: Pakistan are poised to win their first home series in five years when they take on minnows Bangladesh in the second Test starting here from Wednesday.

Unpredictable Pakistan have not won a series at home since beating West Indies 3-0 in the 1997-98 season.

Pakistan lost four home series to Australia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and England.

Pakistan and Bangladesh skippers Rashid Latif and Khaled Mahmud told a press conference that they would adopt positive approach when the two teams meet in the second Test.

 Rashid said he expected the wicket to be full of runs and hoped the team to perform better than the first Test which Pakistan won by seven wickets.

“Our main objective will be to win and win easily. This will be our aim” declared Rashid.

Khaled said there might be a couple of changes for the Test and was confident that the players would not repeat the mistakes made in the first Test.

“We would make some changes in the side for Wednesday’s match, because we want to achieve better results than Karachi,” said Khaled.

  He said that captaincy had not affected his performance in any way and assured that he would be striving hard to deliver his best both with the bat and the ball.

Both the coaches Dav Whatmore and Javed Maindad expressed hope that their respective teams would show improved performance.

“I want to involve every player to form a fighting combination in future. The players are going in the right direction.

“We have found the track and now need capability to run on it,” he added.

Miandad, a perfectionist, expects more from his batsmen and hopes more consistency especially from the seniors.

Both teams braving hot and humid conditions held three hour training and net sessions. Pakistan did their training at Arbab Niaz Cricket Stadium while the visitors did net practice at PCB Regional Academy.

Extremely hot and humid weather in the city is likely to affect the players as well as crowd attendance.

The Met Office recorded maximum temperature of 38 degree. Humid conditions and scorching heat were felt when Pakistan and Bangladesh players just had nets for one hour in the morning.

Cloudy weather was expected with showers during the the next 24 hours and humid conditions would last for some more days.

Response from the fans has so far been poor as only a few hundreds tickets have been sold.

Bangladesh (from): Khaled Mahmud (captain), Hannan Sarker, Javed Omar, Habibul Bashar, Sanwar Hossain, Mohammad Ashraful, Razin Saleh, Alok Kapali, Mohammad Rafique, Khaled Mashud, Tapash Baishya, Monjurul Islam, Anwar Hossain, Alamgir Kabir, Mashrafe Bin Murtaza.

Pakistan (from): Rashid Latif (captain) Mohammad Hafeez, Taufiq Umar, Yasir Hameed, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Yousuf Youhana, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shoaib Malik, Umer Gul, Shabbir Ahmed, Danish Kaneria, Shoaib Akhtar, Saeed Bin Nasir, Mohammad Khalil, Farhan Adil.