FAISALABAD, Oct 28: Pakistan coach Javed Miandad believes his team are capable of beating anyone after forcing a draw with South Africa on Tuesday to win the series 1-0.
“It is a big win for us against a quality side which has a lot of all-round strength and experience. I feel if we play with the same spirit and discipline we can win against any team and that includes Australia,” Miandad said.
Miandad, who took over as coach after a disappointing World Cup, guided Pakistan to a first Test series win over South Africa and their first home series victory against a quality side since 1997.
“I am very happy with our performance because despite not having some key players for this match everyone played like a unit and with commitment,” Miandad said.
“I think in the last two series against Bangladesh and South Africa we have also unearthed four or five young players for the future who are willing to work hard.”
Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was full of praise for young leg spinner Danish Kaneria who took 11 wickets in the two Tests.
“If he continues to improve this way he is our biggest find for a long time,” Inzamam said. “He carried the burden of the bowling and I thought the South African batsmen were never able to relax against him.”
Inzamam said the win over South Africa was a big one and gave full credit to opening batsmen Taufiq Umar and Imran Farhat, who posted three successive century stands in the series.
“I am happy to say the team is now finally taking shape and we have found some good new players,” he said.
South African captain Graeme Smith on Tuesday said his country needed more spin bowlers if it was to succeed on the subcontinent, after losing the country’s first Test series against Pakistan.
Smith also said he would have preferred a three-Test series, but denied he was looking for excuses.
“I think a three-match series is obviously ideal. I think if we had the third Test we would have performed a lot better because we were finding our feet, but this is no excuse,” said the South African captain.
Smith played two left-arm spinners, Paul Adams and Robin Paterson, but neither made an impact in the second Test. The Proteas also lacked any right-arm spinners.
Pakistan batted with a mix of caution and confidence here to force a draw, winning the series 1-0, after needing 294 to win on the last day.
Smith said the tour, which was very nearly cancelled on fears of terrorist attacks and was marred by a series of ugly confrontations between the players, had been an important experience for his side.
“The tour was good for cricket, for the cricketing point of view it was a good tour. We won the one-day series but overall it was a tough tour for us,” said Smith, who took over as captain in March this year, referring to the 3-2 limited-overs series victory.
Smith, the third youngest Test captain at 22, was left to rue a missed chance in the last session on Tuesday when Gary Kirsten dropped Shoaib Malik with Pakistan six down and 14 overs to go.
“Obviously we would have liked to win but you can’t question the commitment, our commitment was superb, with 14 overs left it could have given us a go at the last three batsmen,” he said.
Coach Eric Simons said conditions here had been difficult but he made no excuses.
“It is not an excuse that we were playing in strange conditions, we needed to play as well as we could and that’s what we did,” said Simons.—Reuters/AFP