Karachi: Former England batting star Geoffrey Boycott has said that Pakistan has a good chance of defeating South Africa in the UAE series as the conditions in the Gulf kingdom would be more favourable to the sub-continent side than the tourists.
The former Yorkshire player, who ended his international career in 1982 as the leading Test run scorer with over 8,000 Test match runs, has found further success as a renowned cricket commentator following his retirement.
According to www.PakPassion.net, Boycott believes that Pakistani spinners can exploit the fact that a couple of South African players like Jacques Kallis has lost some of their former prowess given that they are nearing the end of his career, saying that Pakistan can also take advantage of the fact that Test skipper Graeme Smith`s injury doubts.
Stating that Pakistan can achieve success in the series if their bowlers can get the ball to turn in the batting-friendly UAE pitches, Boycott also said that Pakistan`s game plan should be to stay level with or as close to the South Africans given that they have the edge in the spin bowling as compared to the tourists.
According to Boycott, the longer the Test goes on, the better the chance for Pakistan to win, adding that the key for the Pakistani batting line up is to match South Africa in the first innings and stay as close as possible to South Africa`s first innings totals, then unleash Saeed Ajmal and the other spinners on the South African batsmen.
Boycott further said that even though South Africa has the edge over Pakistan in the batting, seam bowling and the fielding departments and with the new ball, however, the pitches in theUAE would nullify the effectiveness of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel and make them fail in a series that should be dominated by the spinners.
