Hafeez says first-ever Proteas win gave Pak confidence to beat SL in ODIs

Karachi: In-form Pakistani batsman and Twenty20 captain Mohammad Hafeez has said that Pakistan`s first-ever win in South Africa raised the confidence of the team which helped them beat Sri Lanka in the ongoing five-match series.

Pakistan registered a thumping eight-wicket win in the fourth match in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday to take an unbeatable lead with the fifth match on Friday left inconsequential, with the win giving them their seventh one-day series win in the calendar year, beating the previous best of six achieved in 2011. According to The Dawn, Hafeez said that Pakistan carry forward the confidence of their 2-1 one-day series win in South Africa last month, saying that it was a big motivation to win in South Africa for the first time and they carried that momentum in UAE. Hafeez scored another match-winning 113 not out in Pakistan`s successful chase of 226-run target, his third hundred in the series, and he became the sixth batsmen in all one-day cricket to score three hundreds in one bilateral series and the first Pakistani to do so behind legendary Zaheer Abbas, the report added