Rival captains Steve Waugh and Waqar Younis have contrasting opinions on the first act of the second cricket Test starting in Sharjah.

Waugh, who will playing his 150th game, repeated his mantra as captain that the toss is "over-rated" and said it would play no part in the outcome.

Waqar, who has captained Pakistan to two crushing wins over the West Indies at this ground after winning the toss and batting first, said the toss will be vital.

"It will be an important toss because it will be hard to bat later on the game," Waqar said.

"The wicket gets slower and slower as the days go on.

"And this pitch looks a little slower than a normal Sharjah pitch - this looks more scuffy and might spin a bit more and reverse swing a bit better."

With that in mind, Pakistan will take in an extra spinner, Danish Kaneria, ahead of medium pacer Mohammad Sami and will expect another big contribution from Shoaib Akhtar with his reverse swing speciality.

"The guy's bowling really well .. I'm hoping for him to produce the same performance in this game, maybe better," Waqar said of Shoaib.

Australia hasn't yet decided on its line-up, with the bowling being the hardest puzzle to solve.

Off-spinner Nathan Hauritz and pace man Andy Bichel appear to be in a head-to-head contest to replace the injured Jason Gillespie but Waugh hinted Australia would go with a traditional line-up of three pace bowlers plus Shane Warne.

"We pretty much know our game plan and we've played with a similar attack for a long time - it doesn't matter too much what the pitch is like we'll still play our style of cricket - I don't think we'll change too much," Waugh said.

"I think the pitch going to hold together pretty well ... that sort of pitch suits us, a hard, flat one where you have to work hard and show a bit of patience - we play good cricket on that type of wicket."

Australia won the first Test by 41 runs in Colombo to lead the series 1-0.

© 2002 AAP

This report does not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Cricket Board.