Key Points

South Africa's all-format tour to Pakistan, consisting of two Tests, will start from October 12 onwards. While the side set to begin their ICC World Test Championship (WTC) defence has not played red-ball cricket since the monumental title win at Lord's, some of its players did feature in the two-match Test series in Zimbabwe during June-July and also played the County Championship. As a part of their main preparation, they replicated what they anticipate to be spin-assisting tracks in Pretoria during their last two days of training camp.

Speaking ahead of team's depature on Monday, Markram said that while Pakistan has every right to use home advantage, giving extremely spin friendly wickets like the ones during their home series against England last year would make things difficult for batters across both teams.

"If it is your home game, you can pretty much prepare whatever wicket you would like to prepare. That is how I see it. Ultimately, if it is going to be extreme like it was in the English series, then it is going to be difficult for both teams from a batting point of view. For us as a squad, we have just got to be happy with what we have, whatever the conditions look like, and to back whoever it is on the day to get the job done. So I am not too fussed by it," he said as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.

During the series against England last year, after a humiliating loss in the first Test and conceding over 800 runs in a single innings, Pakistan won the next two Tests using spin-friendly pitches that were made conducive for tweakers using fans, heaters and windbreakers to dry out the pitches. These matches were played in Multan and Rawalpindi and saw Sajid Khan and Noman Ali starring. 29 of 31 English wickets during these matches fell to spin.

While South Africa does not have any such surfaces, they tried mimicking Pakistan's home advantage at their High Performance Centre.

"There is three pitches that are spinning quite a bit and two out of those three are really exaggerated," Markram said.

"The one that is a little bit in between is still sharp spin but slightly easier to bat on. And then we have got one strip in the middle as well where it is pretty normal. We try to keep it as dead as possible but it is not always that easy, just to have the ball squat a bit low. It is difficult to do that on the Highveld, but we have tried our best. We are trying to tick all the boxes," he added.

Proteas also have a spin friendly squad, consisting of left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy and offspinners Simon Harmer and Prenelan Subrayen.

On them, Markram said that they all throw different challenges at players.

"They are all quite different. If you look at the two off-spinners to start with, Simon and Subs, especially having faced them now, where it is spinning, it is two completely different challenges they throw at you. That is something great to have as a squad. You do not really want similar types of spinners. They are each quite different, different paces, different types of spin in terms of side spin and overspin and stuff like that, which reacts differently off the wickets. They will play a massive role for us there if what we are expecting is going to be the case," he said.

South Africa's top spinner Keshav Maharaj will be playing only second Test and Proteas will have four specialist spinners. They will not have their regular captain Temba Bavuma, ruled out due to calf injury, with Markram taking over the rains.

Bavuma provides stability and experience at number four, playing a pivotal role in WTC title win. One of the replacements at number four is an attacking youngster Dewald Brevis, who has played all formats by now and scored 84 runs in two Tests and three innings, including a fifty, in Zimbabwe during his Test debut.

"He would definitely be an option, especially with the way he plays spin," Markram said. "If the conditions are going to be exaggerated, he can quickly change the momentum of the game doing what he does and playing the way he does. He will be a definite consideration," he added.

Test squad vs Pakistan: Aiden Markram (c), David Bedingham, Corbin Bosch, Dewald Brevis, Tony de Zorzi, Zubayr Hamza,Simon Harmer, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj* , Wiaan Mulder, Senuran Muthusamy, Kagiso Rabada, Ryan Rickelton, Tristan Stubbs, Prenelan Subrayen, Kyle Verreynne. *Second Test only.

- ANI