Australia have started their international summer with a lacklustre win over a spirited Pakistan at the MCG on Monday night with skipper Pat Cummins coming to the rescue with a match-winning innings after a middle-order collapse.
The visitors recovered from 6-118 to post a defendable total of 203 and when they again looked gone with Australia cruising at 2-113, their fast bowlers ripped through the middle order with a burst of 5-42.
But as he’s done with the bat in the Ashes and the ODI World Cup last year, Cummins remained cool and calm to collect a two-wicket win with a captain’s knock of 32 not out from 31 deliveries at No.9.
The Australians rested the likes of Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh and Josh Hazlewood for this series but they still should have been way too strong for Pakistan, particularly after Mitchell Starc struck twice with the new ball to put the tourists on the back foot from the word go.
Australia’s fragile middle order was again a problem with Marnus Labuachagne (16), Glenn Maxwell (golden duck) and Aaron Hardie (10) brought undone by Pakistan’s pace.
Labuschagne has never been able to truly establish himself as a top-line ODI batter and he looked like a fish out of water as he tried to play with more flamboyance than his natural instincts.
He was out caught at third man when he tried to leave a rising Haris Rauf thunderbolt but ended up inadvertently middling it into the night sky.
Maxwell nicked off next ball with Rauf going bang bang at the MCG in scenes reminiscent of Wasim Akram’s famous 1992 World Cup final feats at the same venue.
Hardie momentarily steadied the ship but carelessly gave himself room to smash a cut shot that was way too close to his stumps, as evidenced by the zing bails lighting up when he failed to make contact.
Cummins blazed a boundary from the first ball he faced and he put on 30 with Sean Abbott before his partner was caught loafing while jogging for a third run by a Shaheen Shah Afridi direct hit.
But the skipper enhanced his reputation as a reliable finisher in times of need by guiding his team home with more than 16 overs to spare with Starc (two from 12) riding sidesaddle.
Smith should have been Shielded from ODI series
The Australian selectors took a risk by telling Steve Smith to switch into his coloured kit for the three ODIs against Pakistan instead of getting a second Sheffield Shield hit-out before the first Test in Perth later this month.
He scored just three and a duck for NSW in his only Shield outing and after his well-documented move from opener back to his preferred No.4 position in the Test side, he enters the Border-Gavaskar Trophy showdown with precious little red-ball form or time in the middle.
Smith was motoring along well in striking 44 at first drop before he fell to a well-timed put poorly placed back-foot drive to gully.
His feet were moving, his hands were flowing through the ball as he found the boundary six times but with the India Test series priority No.1 for the summer, he should have been getting a couple more red-ball knocks under his belt for NSW against Queensland.
Inglis unlucky not to be in Test selection mix
The Australian selectors last week ruled out the left-field option of bringing Josh Inglis into the vacant spot in the Test team but the Western Australian keeper has the talent and technique to play as a specialist batter.
Former Australian star Mark Waugh on Fox Cricket said he was “not totally against it but you’d have to shuffle the batting order around” while co-commentator Kerry O’Keeffe said Inglis was undoubtedly in the top six batting options in the land.
Nathan McSweeney, after a standout performance for Australia A, is all but certain to get the nod to come into the line-up for injured all-rounder Cameron Green either opening alongside Usman Khawaja or at first drop with Marnus Labuschagne elevated to the top of the order.
Inglis was fortunate to survive a rising ball from Naseem early which was fumbled by Irfan Khan in the gully but he looked assured for the rest of his innings at the MCG.
The 29-year-old is now a veteran of nearly a decade of first-class cricket and 50 white-ball matches for Australia.
He stroked four fours and slammed three sixes to scoot to 49 but perished when he tried to clear the boundary to bring up his half-century.
Fraser-McGurk fails again
Young gun Jake Fraser-McGurk is struggling to find his feet at international level but he will come good, according to the player he’s most often compared with in David Warner.
JFM swung hard at the 14 deliveries he faced but his timing was off apart from one that he sent to the boundary in front of square leg in just the second over of the Australian reply.
After a couple of near-misses, he fell to a poor shot across the line which went no further than ballooning to mid-wicket.
In his two previous ODI outings against the West Indies, he smashed 10 from five and 41 from 18 while his four T20 hits in green and gold have followed the hot-and-cold trend – duck, 16, duck and 50.
“You’ve got to respect those good balls sometimes,” was Warner’s advice to his protege.
Marnus Labuschagne bats at Melbourne Cricket Ground. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
“You can try and be extra aggressive and try and take down the swinging ball, but in the back of your mind, you see that little bit of swing, you second-guess yourself. A couple of those shots there, Jake would have actually gone through the shot a bit more, but you can see he’s mindful of that ball potentially shaping away.
“But he’ll, nonetheless, hit more balls out of the middle than not.”
Warner recalled how he lost his spot early in his ODI career because he also couldn’t strike the right tempo.
“I got dropped after my first seven or eight games because of that reason. I thought I had to try and hit every ball four or six,” he said.
“I didn’t actually know how to actually play the 50 overs. I had to work out how to hit in the long game of 50-over cricket.
“Some days you feel like I can hit every ball for four or six, but then there’s some days where you have to check yourself, if it is swinging.
“Keep working with the new ball. Keep working with the bowling machine swinging back in or swinging away. There’s things that you can do, but he’s a talented cricketer. He’ll definitely work that out.”
Star bowling trio in a class of their own
Starc, Cummins and Adam Zampa underlined why they are world-class white-ball performers as Australia bowled Pakistan out for 203.
The visitors were lucky to get a total that high after slumping to 6-118 before Naseem Shah’s run-a-ball 40 and Shaheen Shah Afridi’s 24 from 19 ensured the day-nighter went beyond twilight.
Starc (3-33) had the new ball swinging as he removed openers Saim Ayub and Abdullah Shafique cheaply before removing Shaheen in the 37th over before he did too much damage.
Cummins had a smile when Kamran Ghulam unveiled a Steve Smith-like leave and loud call of no to his teammate and the Pakistani batter was frowning a short time later when the skipper unfurled a rip-snorter of a short ball which he just managed to glove to the keeper before it careened into his helmet to be on his way for five.
Zampa was (2-64) taken down for two sixes and a four by Naseem in his last over but he made his mark earlier when he deceived star batter Babar Azam to skid into his off stump.
