Tim Paine says Australia have done homework on young Pakistan

Captain Tim Paine said Wednesday Australia were wary of being "surprised" by Pakistan's young pace attack, which could include 16-year-old sensation Naseem Shah, and mitted y h been studying as much foot as possible. home team go into first Test at Gabba in Brisbane starting Thursday as overwhelming favourites, with Pakistan having lost losing ir last 12 five-day matches in Australia. But tourists' attack has an element of unkwn, with t only Naseem tipped to make his debut but 19-year-old pacemen Shaheen Afridi and Musa Khan in squ.

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"We've prepared for all of m. That's thing with Pakistan, y have a lot of different options, a lot of skill and by looks of it a fair bit of pace," said Paine.

"So we've me sure we've looked at as much foot as possible of ir pace attack, and ir batters.

"What we don't want is to go out re tomorrow at some st and be surprised by something we see, wher that's ir spinner, ir quicks or ir batsmen. So we've done our research."

Naseem, whose mor died last week, has only played seven first-class games but impressed with a fiery eight-over spell against Australia A in Perth in build-up. Paine said he h played with 16-year-olds in club cricket, but never on such a big st. "He looks like a really, really exciting talent," he said. "Pakistan has got a knack of finding se young fast bowlers so it looks like y have ar one to d to that rich history of fast bowlers that y seem to produce." Pakistan also boasts impressive Muhamm Abbas and veteran Imran Khan senior among ir fast bowling arsenal while Yasir Shah is a prolific leg-spinner.

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Reliance on Smith

y will be hoping to make quick inros into Australian top order in Brisbane, but face huge hurdles in kcking over David Warner and Steve Smith. Smith carried his side in recent Ashes series against England and Paine said he wanted to see rest of batsmen offer him more support against Pakistan. "Probably during Ashes we relied too heavily on Steve, so rest of top seven are really keen to score a lot of runs," he said. "Tritionally we love batting in Australia, we have h some real success on this ground, it's a great ground to bat on if you can get in and spend a lot of time out re."

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Joe Burns, who scored a century in his last Test against Sri Lanka in February, is expected to open with Warner. Smith or Marnus Labuschagne will bat at number three, followed by Travis He, Matw We, and Paine. Coach Justin Langer echoed Paine's call for more consistency from Australia's batting line-up. "We're number five in world in Test cricket at moment, and re are reasons for that," Langer said. "One of m is that we don't score 300-plus in first innings eugh. Our batters are very aware of that. "We're t going to shy away from that. It's secret. We kw we've got to keep improving and I'm confident we will."

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