KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28: Weather conditions are expected to disturb the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup’s second semi-final that will be played between Pakistan and South Africa here at the Kinrara Oval on Friday.

It rained heavily throughout the afternoon on Thursday, on the eve of the day-night pre-final.

India, on Wednesday, have already qualified for the final after winning their semi against New Zealand.

The coaches of Pakistan and South Africa, Mansoor Rana and Ray Jennings, thought the rain, if it came in the evening, would be advantageous for the team batting under lights.

Although the batsmen will have to adjust while sighting a muddy ball and struggle with a sluggish outfield, it’s the bowling side that would suffer more with a slippery ball, chiefly their spinners.

Rana felt India would have had a difficult chase against New Zealand had it not rained, while Jennings said England’s easy chase against Sri Lanka because rain had interrupted the play.

“You need a bit of luck when the weather’s going wrong especially with the timing of the rain interruption,” Jennings said.

“Sometimes it’s in your favour and sometimes it’s not. It can play havoc on preparations and the chances of the best side coming through. There’s a definite advantage batting second if it does happen to rain.”

Rana expressed that Pakistan had the strategy for any contingency; however, he added that given the players’ inexperience in high-pressure scenarios, it will be hard to adjust quickly should the weather obstruct the proceedings.

South Africa have qualified from the toughest group, which had India and West Indies, and they outplayed Bangladesh in the quarter-final. Their strength is their pace attack, led by captain Wayne Parnell, which is backed up by a nimble fielding outfit.

Their strategy has been to build pressure in their middle overs through some tight bowling by the medium-pacers, with wicketkeeper Bradley Barnes standing up to the stumps.

A gap could be their batting against good spinners. However, Jennings rejected the notion.

“I think a lot of people are underestimating our batting,” Jennings said. “We have a mix of left and right-handers in our middle order.

“In these conditions the opposition will be using three or four spinners and our middle-order plays spin well. Against India we lost wickets to the seam bowler [Pradeep Sangwan] up front, who our guys obviously lost focus against. Beware of our middle-order players, they can play spin.”

Pakistan, on the hand, have a variety of spinners to disturb South Africa batsmen.

Captain Imad Wasim bowls left-arm orthodox, while their opening batsmen Ahmed Shahzad and Umar Akmal bowl leg-breaks and off-spin respectively.

However, it’s their pace attack that has caused the most harm in the tournament so far and the South African batsmen should be wary of Adil Raza, who recorded a double strike in his first over in the quarter-final against Australia.

The frailty for Pakistan, the defending champions, has been their batting. They played their group matches in Johor where the wickets were damp and did not make 200 even once. Their first hit on a good batting track was against Australia and they chased 129 comfortably after a minor top-order collapse. Akmal hasn’t worked at as opener so far but Rana isn’t too much concerned.

“Our openers scored a lot of runs in Sri Lanka,” he said.

“My concern was the middle order and that was the reason we batted first against Zimbabwe on a difficult pitch [in Johor]. We had already qualified for the quarters and wanted to test the batsmen. Ali Asad scored runs.” —Agencies