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ABU DHABI: Pakistan’s young batsman Asad Shafiq has said that he faced no problems at all in facing the South African bowlers on Monday but was really disappointed to miss a hundred on debut in the second Test.
“With the wicket playing easy, I had a good chance of scoring a century on debut but I missed it and it hurts,” he told reporters in a post match press conference after scoring 61 as Pakistan reached 317-6 at draw of stumps on third day of the second and final Test against SA on Monday.
Asad said he countered no problems whatsoever against Proteas pace pair of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel on a pitch that played well and added that he is dedicating the debut fifty to his family.
He expressed hope that Pakistan will avert the follow-on as skipper Misbah-ul-Haq was batting well.
The South African coach Corrie Van Zyl, speaking to the media later, said South Africa obviously wanted to win the series against Pakistan and will go all out in the remaining two days to achieve it.
Replying to question about forcing the follow-on against Pakistan, he said: “We have to make that decision tomorrow if we are in that position,” he remarked.
Summing up the day’s play, Corrie said the honours were even. “That’s Test cricket for you. It has been a long slog with 88 overs, 260 odd runs and five wickets. But it was good Test cricket at the end of the day.”
Commenting on the track, he said the Dubai wicket gave the Proteas a little more help on the first three days and then sort of remained the same but did not deteriorate.
“I would like to see this pitch deteriorate a little bit more. It looks fairly placid at the moment and is funny enough and I haven’t seen it really break up.”
“The ball did move a lot on day one and a little bit less on day two and today it was even lesser. I thought we plucked away well this morning but we had to bowl some guys a bit differently. But we have to give credit to the Pakistan batsmen, they really played well. They have been patient,” the SA coach maintained.
