Misbah looks to break Tigers' confidence

Cometh a new series, cometh a new captain. Misbahul Haq is the third Pakistani skipper to have been grilled with questions regarding Pakistan's unexpected failure in as many weeks.

The most successful of the lot, Misbah, too was repeatedly bombarded with questions regarding Pakistan's confidence levels. As opposed to his generally calm demeanour in press conferences, the 40-year-old looked slightly perturbed with the questions.

Despite the barrage of queries related to the ODI debacle, Misbah managed to remain focused on his main agenda: the first Test set to begin at Khulna today.

"There is always pressure in international cricket and obviously when the opposition is playing good you have to be at your best. We are aware of them and we have to respect the opposition as they are good at their home condition and have been highly confident since the World Cup.

"Our focus will be on our strengths. We have to concentrate on our basics. It's important for us to break the confidence of the Bangladesh team and for that we have to play our best cricket," believes Misbah.

Pakistan will hope that the return of Younis Khan and Misbah will bolster their batting attack, which has struggled in the last few weeks. The visitors failed to excel in the three ODIs and the sole T20I on good batting wickets. Their totals were gobbled in a hurry by the hosts and they barely displayed a fighting spirit.

Their bowlers failed to live up to the expectations as well and were dispatched by Bangladesh's youngsters. The manner in which young Sabbir Rahman powered in those boundaries against the experienced Wahab Riaz , was a scene, that Bangladesh's fans were not used to before.

However, the visitors can gain encouragement from the way they performed in the last few Tests. Pakistan have won four out of their last five Tests and those wins came against Australia and New Zealand. Misbah is confident that his side can carry on the good work.

"The Test side is quite experienced. We have been performing consistently for quite a long while now. It's a different ball game and these players have a better understanding of Test cricket. Everybody is in good shape and in the best of forms.

"Also the condition here is similar to Abu Dhabi and Dubai and we hope to carry on the form we have in this format," he added.