Sarfraz pins hopes on Yasir

KARACHI: Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed expects Yasir Shah to be the main difference in their Test series against South Africa who he says have not played a top-quality leg-spinner for three years.

Yasir, who has claimed 37 Test wickets in just 10 innings this year, has been highly successful in recent times, especially on the dry surfaces in the United Arab Emirates. Though wickets are going to be different in South Africa, Sarfraz remains confident that Yasir will make a big impact in the series.

“If you talk about South Africa’s Test series against Sri Lanka recently, the pitch was different. All foreign teams struggle there, just like all Asian teams come to South Africa and struggle here. Here, the conditions are different but we do have a world-class spinner,” said Sarfraz ahead of the Boxing Day Test.

“He has taken 202 wickets in 33 Tests and we know South Africa haven’t played a top-quality leg-spinner in three years. So we have an advantage, we have Yasir Shah, and hopefully, they will struggle against him,” the captain said.

Sarfraz said that Pakistan had a coach who had coached in South Africa. “We have clarity about what we’ll do because we have a coach who has coached in South Africa. If you talk about the history of Centurion pitches, the fourth innings is very difficult here,” he pointed out.

“Whoever wins the toss would like to bat first. No one would want to bat in the fourth innings if they’re chasing over 200,” added the wicket-keeper batsman.