Aiden Markram, who will lead South Africa in their two-Test series against Pakistan, has subtly challenged Pakistan to make full use of their home advantage. South Africa is scheduled to play Pakistan in an all-format series beginning on October 12.
Markram, who is leading South Africa in the absence of regular skipper Temba Bavuma, encouraged Pakistan to take advantage of the home conditions.
"If it's your home game, you can pretty much prepare whatever pitch you'd like. So, there are definitely no question-marks from my side. If you want to use home-ground advantage to help your team win a game of cricket, you should be able to do so," Markram said, as reported by Cricbuzz.
He also provided some insight into the decks the South Africans were practicing on at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria. According to Markram, the ground staff did their best to make the pitches as Pakistan-like as possible while the players tried to simulate what might be on offer.
"There are three pitches that are spinning quite a bit. Two out of the three are really exaggerated. The one that's a little bit in between is still offering sharp spin but is slightly easier to bat on. And then we've got one strip in the middle that's pretty normal. We've tried to keep it as dead as possible but it's not always that easy; we're trying to make the ball squat low. It's difficult to do that on the Highveld but we've tried our best to try and tick all the boxes," he said.
The top-order batsman stated that he was not concerned about the pitches in Pakistan, because if they exhibit extreme behaviour, as they did during the three-match series against England last year, it will cause problems for the hosts as well.
South Africa will face Namibia in a one-off T20I before heading to Pakistan. They have yet to announce their squads for the T20I and ODI legs of the multi-format series with Pakistan.
