Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Not so far the best - Pakistan

Pakistan had not been the best in  recent past, losing both the ODI's and  tests against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka and their bad run continues in their make shift home UAE. Australia's tour to the UAE has been a good start, they had won all the three ODI'S against Pakistan. This tour saw, Zulfiqar Babar, 35, making his debut. 

The Mighty Aussies looked comfortable. Pakistan looked belligerent with their pace attack, still they could have included Aizaz Cheema to their pace attack who had a good CLT-20 for Lahore Lions. Hafeez getting injured provided further setback for Pakistan, who missed the ODI's and the t-20. Having had a good CLT-20 Shoaib Mailk's inclusion needs to be overlooked, a solid middle order player who could provide resistance to Pakistan's batting line up that had been facing a collapse. Younis Khan's exclusion a vital decision by the selectors. With the World cup ahead, Shoaib Malik and Younis Khan's experience might help winning games for Pakistan 

This tour so far for Pakistan, Umar Akmal and Sarfraz Ahmed were under the spotlights. Misbah had been struggling all through this year, never had a good run unlike 2013, being Pakistan's highest run getter. The captaincy remains a question mark for Pakistan, Mishbah or Shahid Afridi. Unlike India, opening had been a worry for Pakistan. Ahmed Shehzad need to score runs on a consistent basis for Pakistan with just a 50 in this odi series as an opener. While his partner Sarfraz Ahmed would remain the right choice as an opener. With the World cup ahead, Pakistan would hope to sort out all their issues and would try bringing back Saeed Ajmal.

The Aussies, started off this tour with a t-20 win. Warner looked in great touch coming back to the side, scoring a half century. Aussies never looked like they missed their usual captain Micheal Clarke. Steven Smith, who embarked as Australia's key test player, notched up his maiden ODI ton against Pakistan in the first ODI. Batting at No.3, he scored a breezy 101 taking Australia to 255 and visitors winning a game by good margin. A captaincy material and a successor to Michael Clarke in the future, Steven Smith. Sean Abott makes his debut as well with the wicket of Shahid Afridi on his debut game and more to come from him, hoping to see him play for Australia in lot more games to come. Bailey looks like a complete leader. But, when it comes to scoring runs, he remains on the back seat, his  poor form with the bat would always remain sceptical for the selectors. Maxwell, another big name played a gentle knock in the second ODI scoring 76. Maxwell this series, though had not scored much, remained Australia's wicket taking bowler along side Nathan Llyon and Mitchell Johnson. The third and the final odi was the talk of all social media websites, when Australia turned tables for one run win. A match to remember, when Maxwell bowled a double wicket maiden in the last over of the game, Pakistan need just 2 runs from 6 balls and they failed to score chasing 231.


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