Pakistan's cricket authorities have decide to continue with Malik as captain until the end of 2008 despite the Test and ODI defeats against South Africa and India which came in for sharp criticism.

Malik leads his team into a five ODI series against the lowly ranked Zimbabwe from Monday.

The 26-year-old said the reversals against South Africa and India had made him a better captain.

"I am not going to repeat the mistakes I made last year. I am feeling positive and confident as a captain and players. The good thing the seniors are backing me totally and we are united," he said.

"This is a new year and hopefully we can do better now," he said.

Malik said the Zimbabwe series was a good opportunity to prepare and test new players for the home series against Australia in March-April.

"Before the Australia series it is a good opportunity to try out youngsters who have performed well in domestic cricket," he said.

"We will definitely try out one or two players in every match. Eventually we need to test out new players if we are going to adopt a rotation policy in future specially for the fast bowlers," he added.