South Africa not distracted by fixing controversy - Smith

Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, has said his team is focussed on performing its best in the upcoming tour of the UAE where it takes on Pakistan in a full series and is not distracted by the spot-fixing controversy that has troubled Pakistan cricket since the tour of England earlier in the year. Smith said he expected Pakistan to be competitive in favourable conditions and called out fans in the UAE to provide the fullest support to the teams.

"I think generally there are always one or two things going on in Pakistan cricket, so they're pretty used to dealing with stuff like that at least from a playing perspective," Smith told told Radio 2, a station based in the UAE. "We still expect them to be very competitive on this tour and conditions to suit them.

"You can't hide away from what's going on but as a unit we've dealt with this in our society over the years. We're used to adversity and for us it's just about being honest."

Smith reposed faith in the ICC in tackling the latest crisis and said he viewed the series as the stage to begin a successful preparation for the World Cup in the subcontinent next year. "The ICC has to control the integrity of the game and it's our responsibility to make the game as competitive as possible. We have to put our faith in the ICC to handle things properly," Smith said. "We've got a lot of exciting guys coming through and it's a great platform for our team to kickstart our summer. This month we take on Pakistan in the UAE and then an exciting series at home against India. It's a very important phase for us in our preparation for the World Cup and we want to go there and be competitive.

"It'll be great if the people in the UAE came out and gave us some support. It'll be fantastic."

The tour kicks off on October 26 with the first of two Twenty20 internationals. The teams then play five ODIs and two Tests.