Pakistan did not bat positively in their second innings – Graeme Smith

Graeme Smith, the South African captain, believes that Pakistan did not bat with a positive intent in their second innings of the Cape Town Test, which led to their downfall.

The visitors, who were in a commanding position at stumps on day two of the match, failed to perform well with the bat in their second innings, handing South Africa a four-wicket victory as well as an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the series.

Misbah-ul-Haq and company batted for 75.3 overs but scored just 169 runs at a run-rate of merely 2.23 runs per over, much to the surprise of Smith, who believes that a team cannot afford to play with such a negative frame of mind in modern-day cricket.

The South African captain believes that the situation could have been much different for Pakistan if they had scored their runs a little faster.

“The third innings can be the toughest of the Test match,” Smith said. “You’ve got to make a play and if you are not positive enough the game can get you. That’s what happened to Pakistan.”

Azhar Ali, the right-handed top-order batsman, was Pakistan’s leading run-scorer in the second innings. He consumed 193 balls for his 65 runs at a strike-rate of just 33.67 runs per hundred balls.

Pakistan’s captain is extremely disappointed to have lost the series but feels that the Proteas are the number one ranked Test team of the world and beating them at their own backyard is not easy at all. Misbah is of the opinion that Pakistan do not need to press the panic button after the series loss.

“We lost the Test series but we know we are playing against the No.1 team in the world in their own conditions and we will try to put a better showing there. We want to stick to the basics and spend time at the crease,” the middle-order batsman expressed.

The last Test of the three-match series is going to begin on February 22, at Centurion, which will be followed by two T20 Internationals and five One Day Internationals.

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Posted by Yasir Hashmi on Feb 18 2013. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.