Fear should spur Pakistan

“The boys are very keen to play and that’s a good sign for Pakistan cricket,” Akram said today.

“I think there’s a confidence that wasn’t there in Brisbane. We batted well in that game but we didn’t bowl well and hopefully our bowling will improve.”

Although the tourists have delayed naming their team until the day of the match, Akram indicated that he was planning to pick a three-pronged pace attack, even though Bellerive Oval is traditionally a spinner’s deck.

Pakistan’s bowlers dismissed South Australia twice on a relatively good batting strip in last week’sfour-day game in Adelaide, with speedster Waqar Younis making a spectacular return to form with seven wickets.

Waqar is already Pakistan’s third-highest Test wicket-taker with 277 scalps but has not played for his country since February because of a combination of poor form and injury and is bursting at the seams to get back in the side.

Akram said the team had worked hard on its shoddy fielding from the first Test and he spoke of the return to the bowling attack of Waqar and the world’s number one offspinner, Saqlain Mushtaq.

“He has been working very hard, so he’s got the reward, he’s bowling very well now,” said Akram, of Waqar. The Rawalpindi Express, Shoaib Akhtar, will play.

Pakistan’s greatest motivation, however, is a fear of failure. They were beaten by Australia in the World Cup final. Akram said another defeat would not go down well in his cricket-mad homeland.

“They’ll throw stones at my house. Whenever we lose I have to ring my wife and tell her to park the car at the next doorneighbours,” he said to laughter at the press conference.

“The way we Pakistanis play cricket is totally different than here, in Australia it’s organised and they look after the players… over there, it’s the opposite, so we have to struggle a lot at times.