South Africa VS Pakistan Test Series Preview

On the back of a dominating performance against New Zealand, South Africa now host Pakistan for a 3 match series, who should pose a much greater challenge. The first test is also the occasion for Graeme Smith's record 100 test matches as captain. The first day of the test has been named "Biff Day" reflecting Smith's nickname. Graeme Smith is the first South African captain to lead the side in 100 tests. Outstanding achievement!

South Africa have had a pretty good start to the 2012/13 Test season with 3 wins, 2 draws and no losses. Their win against Australian in early December secured their no.1 ranking. Pakistan meanwhile have not played a test match since July 2012, where they lost 1-0 to Sri Lanka away. However before that they did cleansweep the then top ranked English side 3-0, albeit in familiar conditions in the UAE. South African conditions will prove much tougher for the Pakistanis. In their last series in South Africa (amazingly six years ago) they lost 2-1. In the more recent head to head battle though, they drew with South Africa 0-0 in November 2010 in the UAE.

South Africa will no doubt start favourites for this series, but there is quite high hopes for Pakistan to put up a good performance. They are now ranked at no.4 (above India), so would even expect themselves to play well.

Squads:

South Africa (1st Test): Smith (c), Amla, de Villiers, du Plessis, Elgar, Tahir, Kallis, Kleinveldt, Morkel, A.Petersen, R.Petersen, Philander, Rudolph, Steyn

Pakistan: Misbah ul-Haq (c), Abdur Rehman, Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Eshan Adil, Faisal Iqbal, Haris Sohail, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Irfan, Nasir Jamshed, Rahat Ali, Saeed Ajmal, Sarfraz Ahmed, Tanvir Ahmed, Taufeeq Umar, Umar Gul, Younis Khan


Fixtures
1st Test: 1st February - 5th February @ New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg
2nd Test: 14th February - 18th February @ Newlands, Cape Town
3rd Test: 22nd February - 26th February @ SuperSport Park, Centurion


Ultimately for fans of live world cricket, let's hope for an awesome high-quality test series!