Despite their tour of England going from bad to worse, Pakistan batting coach Michael Smith said that the mood within the visitors’ camp was “good”, while backing the youngsters within the side to come good with time. Pakistan are yet to cross 200 in five attempts this series and are currently 52/2 and 268 runs away from making England bat again in the final Test at Edgbaston.

Pakistan’s tour has also been marred by off-field issues, with the PCB recalling seven players as well as head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed home following the defeat at Lord’s, besides launching an inquiry into the conduct of some of the players. Smith did not speculate over the possibility over the off-field issues adding further pressure on the batters, while reiterating that there are a lot of quality cricketers coming through from Pakistan.

“I know nothing about that [the inquiry] so I can't really comment on anything like that,” Smith told reporters following the second day’s play at Edgbaston. “It's the first time I've heard of those things so I'm not too sure.

“But on the players, for me there's a lot of quality in Pakistan. We've seen it for many years and lots of countries go through slight changes. This is one where we've got some younger players with some experienced players but it's the learning and how quickly we can get them to learn and get comfortable in the Test environment to really help them from a long-term point of view.”

Out of the top-seven playing the ongoing Test, only Babar Azam and Shan Masood have toured England before. Smith acknowledged a “transition phase” for the batting lineup and their inability to bat for longer periods of time, although he cut the younger players some slack.

“We've shown some real good signs but just not for long enough and I think that's probably the biggest lesson is that we need some of our guys to be playing for hours at times and in certain game plans,” Smith said. “I think Saud [Shakeel] has shown us at times, Azan [Awais] has shown us and Shan [too], but we need that for hours and not just for half a session or so.

“Some of the players, it's their first tour of England and they haven't got a lot of Test experience so they are learning some challenging lessons along the way and they have to learn on the Test circuit which is a challenging one. We’ve got to keep making sure that we're showing small really good signs at times but we need to now put a big play in to really get that confidence going again.”

Smith maintained that the team remained in good spirits despite their struggles, while reiterating that it was too early to pass a judgment on the younger batters within the side.

“It’s been tough, it’s been challenging but let’s not take away [the fact that] we've come up against a really good bowling unit in home conditions who've been excellent,” Smith said. “I suppose we might not see the sort of success we want to see now but hopefully if a lot of these players are back on our next UK tour we'll really see an upward trend and I think that's the time to really judge them - especially some of the younger players who get their first taste of the English type of conditions.

“It's tough cricket but the one thing our boys are really doing is embracing being on tour and actually enjoying themselves on tour as well as a group, as a whole.”

Having been roped in as the batting coach just prior to this series, Smith opined that he needed more time to assess whether structural changes are needed to get the players ready for challenges similar to what they’ve encountered in this series. But he was quick to acknowledge that the challenge on hand as batting coach was “a bloody exciting one”.

“I think I've got a bloody exciting challenge on my hands because there are some serious players,” Smith said. “Let’s not worry about what's happening here, we've got some really exciting players and [their] 

potential

 is exceptionally high. It's just how quickly can we get them to that level, especially playing outside of Pakistan. That's going to be a big challenge and something we're really excited about.”

Pakistan’s immediate challenge though lies in forcing a fourth innings in the Test, for which they will have to go well beyond breaching the 200-mark for the first time in the series.