‘Australia have done homework on Pakistan pacers’

BRISBANE: Captain Tim Paine said Wednesday Australia were wary of being “surprised” by Pakistan’s young pace attack, which includes 16-year-old sensation Naseem Shah, and admitted they had been studying as much footage as possible.

The home team go into the first Test at the Gabba in Brisbane starting Thursday (today) as overwhelming favourites, with Pakistan having lost their last 12 five-day matches in Australia. But the tourists’ attack has an element of the unknown as it also features two 19-year-old fast bowlers in Musa Khan and Shaheen Afridi.

“We’ve prepared for all of them. That’s the thing with Pakistan, they have a lot of different options, a lot of skill and by the looks of it a fair bit of pace,” said Paine. “So we’ve made sure we’ve looked at as much footage as possible of their pace attack, and their batters.

“What we don’t want is to go out there tomorrow at some stage and be surprised by something we see, whether that’s their spinner, their quicks or their batsmen. So we’ve done our research.”

Naseem, whose mother died last week, has only played seven first-class games, but impressed with a fiery eight-over spell against Australia A in Perth in the build-up. Paine said he had played with 16-year-olds in club cricket, but never on such a big stage.

“He looks like a really, really exciting talent,” he said. “Pakistan have got a knack of finding these young fast bowlers so it looks like they have another one to add to that rich history of fast bowlers that they seem to produce.”

Pakistan also boast the impressive Muhammad Abbas and veteran Imran Khan senior among their fast bowling arsenal while Yasir Shah is a prolific leg-spinner. They will be hoping to make quick inroads into the Australian top order in Brisbane, but face huge hurdles in knocking over David Warner and Steve Smith.

Smith carried his side in the recent Ashes series against England and Paine said he wanted to see the rest of the batsmen offer him more support against Pakistan. “Probably during the Ashes we relied too heavily on Steve, so the rest of top seven are really keen to score a lot of runs,” he said.

“Traditionally we love batting in Australia, we have had some real success on this ground, it’s a great ground to bat on if you can get in and spend a lot of time out there.” Coach Justin Langer echoed Paine’s call for more consistency from Australia’s batting line-up. “We’re number five in the world in Test cricket at the moment, and there’s reasons for that,” Langer said.