South Africa Series UAE 2010 : SOME INTRESTING INFORMATION

Pakistan’s limited overs team left for the tour of United Arab Emirates where the team would be taking part in a five match One-Day-International series and two T20 matches against South Africa.

The series starts on the 26^th of this month with the opening T20 match at Abu Dhabi, the very next day the second and final T20 match would be played at the same venue.
The two teams would then lock horns in a five match 50 overs series, with the opening two matches at Abu Dhabi on 29^th and 31^st of October.
The third, fourth and fifth ODIs would be held at Dubai’s sports city on 2^nd, 5^th and 8^th November respectively.
Some members of the limited overs squad would stay back for the two test match series that starts at Dubai with the first test from the 14^th of November.
The second test match would be played at Abu Dhabi; Pakistan would be led by experienced middle-order batsman Misbah Ul Haq in the short series.
For the limited overs series the men in green are being led by the swashbuckling Shahid Afridi.
Under him, the Pakistan team looks strong on paper yet have a big battle in store against one of the most formidable teams in the world.
The last time the two teams met in a bi-lateral series was in 2007, when the South Africans travelled to Pakistan for an ODI and test match battle where the Proteas prevailed.
The ODI series was extremely entertaining with almost every match going down to the wire; the hosts were in control for most part and only lost the last match after a stunning collapse from a seemingly impregnable position at Lahore’s Qaddafi stadium.
However, this was the closest that they have come to toppling the Africans in a bi-lateral ODI series. Since South Africa’s readmission to international cricket in 1991, the Proteas have had the wood over Pakistan in tests and ODIs.
The Pakistanis lost the first ever ODI match between the two teams at the 1992 World Cup, a tournament that they eventually won  by staging one of the most dramatic comebacks in the history of the game.
After that defeat, they won the next seven ODI’s on the bounce against the Proteas in a run that started in South Africa in a three nation tournament that also involved the then might West Indians.
The South Africans then got the measure of Pakistan and started their own winning sequence against them; their sequence was much more comprehensive and bigger.
Form the four nation tournament staged in South Africa in 1995, the hosts won as many as 14 matches.
It took Pakistan five years to overcome that sequence when pace man Shoaib Akhtar produced a brilliant spell of reverse swing at lightening pace to send the Proteas packing for 101 in their 169 run chase for a win under the lights at Sharjah.
Shoaib Akhtar is part of the current Pakistan team and the Asians would be hoping for similar fireworks from the aging Rawalpindi Express who is at the end of a rollercoaster of a career that started 13 years ago.
Despite breaking the South African spell in 2000, the Pakistanis have struggled to win regularly against the Proteas and thus they would start out as favourites in the limited overs series.
Their batsmen have been in stunning form of late and smashed minnows Zimbabwe for 399 runs in the third and final ODI of the series on Friday.
A packed crowd is expected for the two T20 matches, while a decent turnout is guaranteed for the ODIs considering the interest of the South Asian expat community in the game they love the most.