Monday, Oct 14, 2013

Abu Dhabi: Mohammad Irfan attributed his fiery spell in the morning session, which saw him claim the two vital wickets of Alviro Petersen and Graeme Smith, to the hard work he had put in at the National Cricket Academy after his flop in the recent Zimbabwe series.

“After coming back from the Zimbabwe tour, I really worked hard on my fitness with my coach and it helped today,” said Irfan, who was seen leaving the field after camping in his 14th over.

“The cramp has nothing to do with fitness and there was nothing to worry about it. I didn’t drink as much water as I should have in these conditions and that was the only problem,” he added.

Irfan was also all praise for the 34-year-old left-arm spinner Zulfiqar Babar, who finished with brilliant figures of 27-2-3-86.

“Zulfi is a very fine bowler and we knew he would do well. We both hail from the same place, Multan, and I have seen a lot of him. He will definitely like to carry on from the start that he has got,” said the 7ft 1 tall pacer.

With the spinners doing so well on a day one track, Irfan was of the view that they will be more vital in the second innings.

“The spinner smanaged to turn the ball well when the wicket was not doing enough and so I’m confident that they will come in very handy as the Test match progresses. Today we started well and in between South Africa did manage to build a partnership but our spinners got us back in the end and so we are happy,” revealed Irfan.

South Africa’s JP Duminy was impressed with the way Irfan bowled, saying, “ We always knew he was a tough bowler to face. He is a lot different than facing a general seamer. We just stuck to our game plans,” said Duminy, adding that he was pretty pleased with his own showing.

“I thought I was very good in my movements today. I was pretty confident in my execution. Though I got out to a sweep shot, I would say that I back my self pretty well to play that. Just that at that time the execution was not up to par,” said Duminy, who scored 57 and was involved in a vital partnership of 95 with Hashim Amla.

Duminy attributed the success and consistency of Amla, who scored an unbeaten 118, to the immense concentration he has. “The power and concentration that he has is phenomenal. The key now is for him to keep kicking on. We always take responsibility once you are in and I’m sure he will continue to kick on from here,” he said.

By N.D. Prashant Staff Reporter

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