At Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Pakistan and Australia squared off in game 18 of the 2023 ODI World Cup.
Pakistan chose to field first after winning the toss. With their allotted 50 overs, Australia set a challenging goal of 367 runs, with openers David Warner and Mitchell Marsh both making outstanding hundreds. Pakistan’s star bowler, Shaheen Shah Afridi, finished with a five-wicket haul.
Imam-ul-Haq and Abdullah Shafique, Pakistan’s openers, put together a reliable partnership of 134 runs to get their team off to a strong start in their pursuit. However, unlike Warner and Marsh earlier in the day, they were unable to turn their starts into centuries.
Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, and Mohammad Rizwan all made some spectacular shots, but Australia, powered by Zampa’s superb bowling, continually took wickets to stall Pakistan’s pursuit. In the end, Pakistan was dismissed for 305 runs after failing to reach the objective. Shaheen Afridi’s five-wicket haul was admirable, but it wasn’t enough to give Pakistan the victory.
POTM David Warner said:
It (groin) is a little bit sore, all cramps at the moment, that’s all it is. It (partnership with Marsh) was awesome, once we got the pace of the wicket, we were going to try and target their bowlers. For us to go out there and put a performance like that is very pleasing. Committing and backing my skills, I had a good hit yesterday, it was ticking along, I was just one bit of luck away and it helps when you’re hitting the ball out of the middle. Playing on a ground like this as well, you got to take those chances.
Just to get out there and build a partnership with Mitch today. We spoke about trying to bat till 35 overs at least and then probably score heavily in the back end. From our perspective, there’s a little bit of tinkering there we got to work on, we lost 5 or 6 wickets in the last 10. Every run is valuable, part of my DNA is to run hard between wickets, I have always done that and I’ll always continue to keep doing that as long as I keep playing.
Winning Skipper Pat Cummins said:
Great win. Always pretty tough playing here at Chinnaswamy but good win. Set the tone (those two – Marsh and Warner) of how we want to play our cricket. That’s the thing sometimes in ODI cricket. You get one breakthrough and sometimes it’s hard for the new batter. Saw Stoin coming in, hit the pitch hard and provide the breakthrough. Zampa showed his class. He’s a real wicket-taker for us in the middle. Have a 3-4 day break, need to keep up the benchmark from the last couple of games.
Losing skipper Babar Azam said:
Were not up to the mark with the ball. And if you drop the catch of someone like Warner, he won’t spare you. This is a big scoring ground, margin of error is very less. Whole credit to fast bowlers and spinners for the way we pulled it back in last few overs. Just tried to hit the length and hit the stumps. Message was simple – we can do it, we’ve done it in the past. Ball came on well under lights. Couldn’t get big partnerships in the middle overs. Need to be better in the first 10 overs with the ball, and better in the middle overs with the bat.
Home