PAK vs SA 2025: Aiden Markram 'not too fussed' over Pakistan's home advantage

Published - 06 Oct 2025, 23:30 IST | Updated - 06 Oct 2025, 23:30 IST

Aiden Markram, who is set to lead South Africa in their two-Test series against Pakistan, has quite subtly provided an open challenge to Pakistan to use as much of home advantage as they would like. South Africa are scheduled to take on Pakistan in an all-format series, set to commence on October 12.

Markram, leading South Africa' in the absence of regular skipper Temba Bavuma, welcomed Pakistan to use the home conditions to their advantage.

"If it's your home game, you can pretty much prepare whatever pitch you'd like. So, there are definitely no question-marks from my side. If you want to use home-ground advantage to help your team win a game of cricket, you should be able to do so," stated Markram, as quoted by Cricbuzz.

He also gave a decent idea on the decks the South Africans were practicing on at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria. According to Markram, the groundstaff tried its best to make the pitches as Pakistan-like as possible as they players tried to simulate what could possibly be on offer.

"There are three pitches that are spinning quite a bit. Two out of the three are really exaggerated. The one that's a little bit in between is still offering sharp spin but is slightly easier to bat on. And then we've got one strip in the middle that's pretty normal. We've tried to keep it as dead as possible but it's not always that easy; we're trying to make the ball squat low. It's difficult to do that on the Highveld but we've tried our best to try and tick all the boxes," he added.

The top-order batter said that he was not too worried about the pitches in Pakistan, since if they exhibit extreme behaviour like during the three-match series against England last year, then it will lead to issues for the hosts as well.

"If it's going to be extreme like it was in the England series, it's going to be difficult for both teams from a batting point of view. We've just got to be happy with what we have, whatever the conditions look like, to back whoever it is on the day to get the job done. I'm not too fussed about it," Markram concluded.

PAK pick three uncapped players for two-match SA Test series

South Africa will take on Namibia for a one-off T20I before making their way to Pakistan. They are yet to announce their squads for the T20I and ODI legs of the multi-format series against Pakistan..