JOHANNESBURG: Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur said on Monday he was determined to find a solution to his team’s problems against fast, short-pitched bowling.

Speaking after South Africa completed a 3-0 series clean sweep by winning the third Test by 107 runs at the Wanderers, Arthur said he wanted to build a team able to play in all conditions by the time they started their campaign in the world Test championship in September.

“We play Sri Lanka in the United Arab Emirates in September then we play Australia in Australia straight after that,” he said. “We have to have our skill sets perfect to manage the bouncing ball. I want to get our batsmen into Australia three or four weeks early, to have camps there to get them ready.”

Arthur singled out Babar Azam, Shan Masood and Asad Shafiq as batsmen who had played well during the series and he gave qualified support to Sarfraz Ahmed, whose captaincy was questioned by Pakistani media. “This question always arises at the end of a series,” said Arthur. “Sarfraz goes from strength to strength. He wants to lead from the front. I thought his wicket-keeping has been outstanding. What we need is to get a good core of leaders around him.”

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2019