HYDERABAD, Jan 23: After being outclassed so emphatically in the first One-day International, Zimbabwe need to pull up their socks if they aspire to compete with Pakistan on Thursday when Niaz Stadium stages its first international cricket match after a long gap of 10 years.

Zimbabwe's current state of cricketing health, rather unfortunately, points to a repeat of the Karachi carnage where first Pakistan merrily cashed in to set a new record of five batsmen scoring half centuries in their innings before three Zimbabweans posted 50 to create a new landmark as the match, decided by 104 runs, yielded a unique eight half centuries.

Robin Brown, the Zimbabwe coach, has pledged his young team would play decent cricket, while promising to put behind what had happened in Karachi two days ago. Unsurprisingly, he is worried by the lack of penetration in the bowling department, an area that has been sadly found wanting on the tour thus far. However, spinners Ray Price and skipper Prosper Utseya may find the bare Niaz Stadium strip to their liking.

The former wicket-keeper/batsman, who took over as the national coach from Kevin Curran last August, would love to have Tatenda Taibu and Brendan Taylor, arguably the best batsmen in the line-up, firing with the bat after the pair collected just 15 runs between them in the first game.

Utseya, who despite being in the job for almost 18 months, the other day made a big mistake of asking Pakistan to bat first in ideal batting conditions. Once the home side had amassed 347-5, the game was as good as over.

Pakistan's track record at this venue, considered historic in every sense of the word because of great achievements, is unblemished having emerged winners in all six previous One-day Internationals after medium-pacer Jalaluddin set the tone with the first-ever ODI hat-trick against Australia in the first limited-over match played here way back in September 1982.

Shahid Afridi, the mercurial all-rounder, is the only link of international cricket in this city of almost two million simply because he played in the last ODI played here when Pakistan hosted Sachin Tendulkar's Indian team on Sept 28, 1997.

Since it is a day fixture, the toss could play an important part because the 9:15 start will assist lateral seam movement in the initial stages of the match. Moreover, one man will be hoping for a better start before the first ball is bowled. Waqar Younis, the former Pakistan fast bowler and now a TV commentator, simply address the Zimbabwe captain as 'Pros' at the toss and even failed to inform the viewers who had won it (the toss).

Both teams had nets simultaneously late in the afternoon after arriving from Karachi a few hours earlier.

Teams (from):

PAKISTAN: Salman Butt, Nasir Jamshed, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shoaib Malik (captain), Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal, Sohail Tanvir, Rao Iftikhar, Samiullah Niazi, Fawad Alam, Yasir Arafat, Sarfraz Ahmed, Kamran Hussain.

ZIMBABWE: Vusimusi Sibanda, Hamilton Masakadza, Chamu Chibhabha, Tatenda Taibu, Brendan Taylor, Sean Williams, Stuart Matsikenyeri, Elton Chigumbura, Prosper Utseya (captain), Ray Price, Christopher Mpofu, Tawanda Mupariwa, Keith Dabengwa, Gary Brent, Timycen Maruma.