Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed is confident that they will do well in the ICC World Test Championship after struggling to return to the form in this format in the last two years.

“After in-and-out performances in the last two years since the retirements of Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan, I think we are now ready to challenge other teams in the World Test Championship,” he said.

Pakistan is at 7th among 12 Test teams in the ICC World Rankings.

“We have struggled after losing Misbah and Younis and we are in a rebuilding process. But now I think our batsmen are ready to fill the gaps and take responsibility,” he said. “We have Shaan Masood, Imam-ul-Haq, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq, Haris Sohail and Babar Azam who have now gone through the grind and can do well at the Test level. There is also lot of experience now behind Azhar and Asad.”

Sarfaraz further said that Pakistan needed some quality spinners to support their pacers as Wahab Riaz and Mohammad Aamir have now stopped playing Test cricket.

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“We need to work on our bowling now and we have a couple of exciting pacers to look at and find some spinners. I think we are now in a position to do well in the test format which now has more meaning and purpose and every match is important,” he concluded.

Their first campaign will be against Sri Lanka which is although in a dilemma. However, they will takeon Australia in November.