Smith anticipates close fight in 1st ODI
Bureau Report

LAHORE—Captain, Graeme Smith said he anticipates close competition between two new look young teams of South Africa and Pakistan in the one-day series which begins here tomorrow, Thursday.
" Both South Africa and Pakistan are new look teams as they have included young players and a keen contest is expected between them in the one day games ",he told reporters at a press conference here on Wednesday. Smith said his team is fully focused to take on a fresh challenge and its main objective is to maintain consistency and to produce good results.
" One day series is a fresh challenge for us and we are in right direction to exhibit good cricket the way we demonstrated it in the test series and the result was fantastic ",he added. Protease captain was upbeat when asked how confident he was of his team's success in the series. " Our confidence level is high and we expect some good performances from new players who have been included in the side after the test series ",he added.
" I think we stand a good chance to win the series knowing the fact that Pakistan has some dangerous players in Younis Khan and Muhammad Yousaf but we have also some dangerous players to be a tough opponent ",he added. " Obviously our aim will be stopping them (not to let them score runs) and we will be applying some special plans the way we did in the test matches ",he said.
He said Pak team is fully capable of making a come back and they have not forgotten this aspect and they will be playing to their full potential to keep Pakistan under pressure by getting good results. " We dominated both the test matches which put Pakistan under pressure and we want to keep them under same situation by exhibiting a higher level of cricket and we have some good batsmen and bowlers to help us out ",he added.
He said pace bowler Andre Nel is having a knee problem and hopefully he will be available for the match and another bowler VD Philander is having a hamstring problem and has been ruled out of the match.
" As a captain I am happy the way we are playing here as getting encouraging results in conditions in sub continent is a big challenge which we accomplished in the first part of our tour ",he said.
Answering a question,he said, it is too early to comment on the new rule of ball change introduced in the one-day cricket.
As per new rule the ball is changed after 35 over in a innings. " I think ICC wants to show consistency with the change of ball but it will take a few games to know its impact and unless we do not have the experience we cannot say it is good or bad ".