Steve Smith predicts tough time for Pakistan batters in Australia

Steve Smith is anticipating a challenging time for Pakistan's batsmen as Australia gears up to face them in the first Test in Perth. 

Expressing his hopes for pace and bounce from the Perth pitch, Smith believes that the conditions, with some grass on the wicket, may provide early seam movement and become flatter as the game progresses.

 “I assume it’ll have some decent pace and bounce, which it normally does here. I think there’s a little bit of grass on it … so there may be a bit of seam movement early on and it will probably get a bit flatter as the game goes on. (There) may be some cracks if the heat stays. We will wait and see and play it by ear each day. 

“It’s something we will try and exploit, I suppose. We look at the wickets we played on in Pakistan and the wickets there didn’t have much pace and bounce, they were very slow, and coming to somewhere where potentially sub-continent players don’t receive as much … bounce, (so) that is something we try to exploit and get those wickets behind the wicket with catches. That usually comes into play quite a bit, so hopefully the boys can get that this week," Smith was quoted as saying by Fox Sports.

Meanwhile Australia’s coach Andrew McDonald has said that Pakistan had been practicing on surfaces with lower bounce, specifically in Canberra, and he hopes to exploit this potential vulnerability by exposing them on a bouncy Perth pitch.

"They're coming from lower surfaces (Canberra) in their prep - so hopefully we can expose them on a bouncy surface," McDonald said. "No doubt, that's an advantage."