The iceman of modern-day cricket, Pat Cummins has done it again.
It was the typical Pakistani team playing at MCG. One minute, they were hopeless, then back in the game at full pace. Pakistani pacers almost pulled the game from the hosts. Haris Rauf’s fiery spell of 3/67 nearly stole the game from the hosts. He picked Marnus Labuschagne and Glenn Maxwell on two consecutive balls surprising both the batsmen with his pace.
Australia restricted Men in Green to just 203 runs where Mitchell Starc took 3 wickets for 33 runs from his 10-over spell, including three maidens. Skipper Pat Cummins showed his bowling skills after taking 2 wickets for just 39 runs with one maiden in his 9.4 overs. Starc surpassed Legendary Australian pacer Brett Lee as he took 100 ODI wickets in Australia in 54 innings, while Lee achieved this milestone in 55 innings. Labuschagne proved a golden arm as he picked the wicket of well-set Muhammad Rizwan.
Pakistani star Babar Azam was looking so confident as he middled with everything that came his way before being cleaned up by Zampa’s delivery that kept low. It was Babar’s first clean bowled against spinners in five years in ODI’s. Rizwan who was playing his first match as Pakistani skipper scored 44 runs before he threw away a good start. At the tail, Naseem Shah contributes 40 runs to the team’s total.
Australia is one up in the three-match series, this series against Pakistan is major preparation for Australia as they will play only one ODI against Sri Lanka in February.
Pakistan is coming into the series with a new skipper and coach, and a lot of things have been happening in the management from the last year Babar has resigned twice from the white ball captaincy after the ODI World Cup 2023. Saim Ayub and Mohammad Irfan made their debut for Pakistan on Monday.
Mitchell Starc was awarded POTM for his brilliant bowling figures of 3/33.
Australian skipper Pat Cummins: “Tonight we got it done, always much prefer sitting in the changing room. Wonderful match but got a bit tighter than we would have liked. Really happy with the way the guys bowled, Starcy was terrific at the top and the others bowled really well. [on trying 8 bowlers] Trying to keep it interesting, Marnus is always in my ear so he had to have an over, he got one wicket. With this being an ODI and with the conditions, got plenty of allrounders, might as well use them. For three-quarters we were really good, try and find some partnerships, looking to play aggressively and sometimes it may not work, but think still room to try and find a couple of partnerships.”
Pakistani skipper Mohammad Rizwan: “We decided whatever the situation we will fight and show courage. It was good, this kind of match you can’t say anything. It’s difficult to read anything into this game, the result is in God’s hands, but I’m happy with the fight we put up. I was keeping myself busy with field changes. Will give credit to both teams’ bowlers. We have always seen a lot of support for Pakistan. Haris Rauf bowled very well, what we decided as a bowling group we don’t want to go to the 5th or 6th bowler, try and use the four seamers. The luck was with Australia and that’s why they won.”
Jasir Basharat is a cricket enthusiast capturing the heart of the game through insightful analysis and storytelling sharing his passion for the sport through engaging narratives. He is a business graduate from University of Kashmir.
