Abu Dhabi: England captain Alastair Cook believes that his inexperienced team can go on to create history by becoming the first team to tame Pakistan in the UAE.

“We’re as ready as we can be,” said Cook ahead of their final training session on Monday. England are clearly the underdogs going into the series and the 3-0 rout in the 2012 series will still be fresh in their minds.

“Everyone’s thrown everything into practice. With these modern tours, four days of acclimatisation in the middle never seems quite enough. But that’s just the way it is,” added Cook, who was of the view that the tag underdogs would egg his players on.

“We’re probably underdogs but that’s a great position for this side to be in. Not too many people are giving us too much of a chance the day before this series – quite similar to another series we’ve just played,” said Cook, who felt he has the weapons in his armory to do well in these testing conditions.

“With the talent and the character of the dressing room – yes, we’ve got to play some amazing cricket over the next 15 days to put Pakistan under pressure, we realise that – but I’m very confident in those guys,” affirmed Cook, who acknowledged that it was his toughest tour as captain but was optimistic of putting up a good show.

“Every tour seems to be the toughest test, especially away from home. I’m really excited about what’s going to happen. We understand the pressures of playing subcontinent cricket as well – a lot slower-paced. You can lose games of cricket in a short space of time, but you have to do a lot of good work over a long period to win games, and the guys are prepared for that.”

England will also me missing the services of Steven Finn with a foot injury but Cook is not that perturbed. “Bitter blow for him. Bowled really well in that warm-up game and over last 12 months and has made huge strides back to where we want him to be. We’ll monitor him over a bit of time – hopefully he will be fine for the second Test, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

The skipper was also confident of spinner Adil Rashid transforming his ODI form into the Tests on debut. “It’s going to be interesting as Adil has made really good strides since the West Indies tour. After his one-day experience, he will be feeling a bit more comfortable around the group. Spin is a tough art to master, but he’s got well over 300-400 first-class wickets, so he can definitely bowl. I know he’s looking forward to his opportunity.”