Steve Smith hit 80 from 51 balls as Australia cruised to victory in Canberra to take a 1-0 series lead after the first game was washed out
And here’s a report:
Related: Steve Smith stars as Australia hammer Pakistan in second T20
This reworked T20 side has been imperious on home turf, and so it proved again tonight. Smith didn’t even need to bat in the first match of the season against Sri Lanka, and didn’t get a chance in the first against Pakistan. But he’s made up for that tonight with an outstanding 80 from 51 balls. I had some doubts that he was the most logical pick for this format, given the powerful scorers at Australia’s disposal who aren’t playing, but for situations like this with a mid-range total and a few early wickets against good bowlers, there’s no one better. And there was nothing wrong with his scoring rate tonight. He looked mint.
Pakistan had their moments, when Iftikhar was batting at the end of their innings, and when their bowlers threatened to squeeze the chase. But even though Finch and Warner didn’t make huge scores today, they made a fast start that already put the game well in Australia’s favour. Smith took it from there.
18.3 overs: Australia 151-3 (Smith 80, Turner 8) A wide, a couple of singles, and Amir sees the match to the end that always looked likely.
18th over: Australia 148-3 (Smith 79, Turner 7) You know how sometimes in training batsmen will turn the bat side-on, and try to play using only the edge? Smith just did that, deliberately, playing an uppercut at Wahab Riaz. Landed it flush on the fat edge of his bat, and lifted it over fine leg for four. Next he opens up his stance and slaps an off-drive over the field for another boundary. This is some display.
17th over: Australia 136-3 (Smith 68, Turner 6) Smith. Smith, Smith, Smith. He’s had enough of pottering. Amir comes back, Pakistan’s blue-chip bowler, and Smith just takes him apart. Three boundaries through the off side, each of them distinct in shape and style. Each drives, of a sort, but played standing still, hand-eye contact only, all wrists, opening up space at cover, carving, slapping, slashing, those rubbery limbs that define Smith’s off-side play. That was something to see.
16th over: Australia 121-3 (Smith 55, Turner 5) Just the four runs from Shadab’s final over, and he finishes with 0 for 25 from his spell tonight. Australia need 30 from 24 balls from here.
15th over: Australia 117-3 (Smith 54, Turner 2) Yet another international half-century for Smith – his fourth in this format, compared to 50 of them between Tests and ODIs. He gets there with a very Steve Smith shot, a wristy whip of a full ball from Irfan, away through wide long-on.
14th over: Australia 109-3 (Smith 47, Turner 1) Ashton Turner is next in, a powerful hitter of the ball, and he’ll start against Shadab’s spin. Just the three singles as Australia consolidate.
13th over: Australia 106-3 (Smith 45) Imad is conceding ones and twos, but that’s all the batsmen need by now. Smith is running the second runs hard. But from the last ball of the over McDermott tries to sweep, misses, and is hit on the waist in front of off stump while kneeling. He reviews it, but the ball-tracking isn’t working for some reason. That’s interesting. So Australia will lose the review even though there’s no way to tell if it’s umpire’s call, presumably?
12th over: Australia 101-2 (Smith 43, McDermott 18) It was odd that Wahab came on so late, but that means that he can’t be taken out of the attack if Babar wants four overs from him. So he has to continue after his messy over. McDermott manages to slice a boundary behind point. Nearly gets run out again later in the over, produces another big dive. Australia need 50 from 48.
11th over: Australia 91-2 (Smith 42, McDermott 9) Imad is back, and produces a tidy over of spin for his captain. Five singles from it.
10th over: Australia 86-2 (Smith 40, McDermott 6) Sheesh, what a jumble sale of an over. Wahab bowls a no-ball, then tries a bouncer to defend the free hit but gets called for a wide. Then Smith whacks the free hit straight for four, then there’s another no-ball, this time too high, and Smith carts that for four as well. He can’t take full toll of the second free hit, then McDermott nearly runs himself out. He did that four times in a row in the UAE last year, but this time he manages to dive home.
9th over: Australia 75-2 (Smith 34, McDermott 4) Unlike Pakistan’s first half an innings, the early wickets haven’t stopped Australia finding a boundary or two each over. Smith does it again, slicing Shadab’s leggie away through extra, in between harvesting singles. That sort of play just makes the target melt away.
8th over: Australia 66-2 (Smith 27, McDermott 2) You can watch how fast Smith’s brain-computer works. The first ball of Irfan’s over he’s done for bounce, trying to punch off the back foot but beaten over the bat, nearly nicking. But once he knows what to expect, he carves away two boundaries, one an uppercut, one over point. He’s just... so good.
7th over: Australia 57-2 (Smith 18, McDermott 2) Shadab Khan is on, the leg-spinning all-rounder, bowling straight and fast with the option for a googly. He bowls tight, singles from five of the balls, but Smith skips down to the fifth and lifts it gently over the bowler and away for four. Supreme control against spin from Smith, that’s the great boon that he can be for Australia in the white-ball formats.
6th over: Australia 48-2 (Smith 11, McDermott 0) One run and one wicket from the over. A fine comeback for Irfan. McDermott the next in for Australia, filling in for Glenn Maxwell who is on personal leave.
The other opener gone! Finch battered Mohammad Irfan for 26 from an over the other night. Tonight, the big bowler draws three false shots from Smith and then Finch with the short ball, twice swinging and missing against his extra bounce. The fifth of the over, Finch tries to clear it off the back foot over cover, but skews the shot and gives up a steepling catch to mid-off.
5th over: Australia 47-1 (Finch 17, Smith 10) A slip in for Smith, and Amir looking for swing, looking for the edge. One ball is too much on leg stump though, and Smith plays the same shot that had him caught so memorably by Sheldon Cottrell in the World Cup match at Trent Bridge: the lofted flick off the pads behind square. This time he gets more of it, and there is a man out there but it clears him for six! Unorthodox but got it! Amir follows up with a swinging yorker, but Smith gets something on it. Good battle.
4th over: Australia 38-1 (Finch 16, Smith 2) Imad Wasim almost bowls a brilliant over. Almost. Four singles in five balls. A decent ball for the sixth, tight on off stump. But Finch is in such good touch on a true surface that he punches on the back foot, and threads it between point and backward point along the ground for four. What placement.
3rd over: Australia 30-1 (Finch 10)He’s out! Warner has been unbeaten for three innings in a row in this format, but not this time. Mohammad Amir makes the point that he should have taken the first over. Starts to get a bit of swing, gets forced away by Finch for four, but when Warner takes the last ball of the over the batsman backs away, looking to smash an off-stump line over cover. Instead Amir bowls straighter, angling in at leg stump from wide on the crease. Beats Warner’s shot and lights up the stumps.
2nd over: Australia 25-0 (Warner 20, Finch 5) Imad’s left-arm spin is very economical in the Powerplay generally, but Warner is happy to go over cover for four. Imad comes left-arm around the wicket to the left-hander, trying to cramp him for room, but Warner is awake to it and twice backs away to make space. He hits squarer for the second boundary. So Imad comes over the wicket to bowl at the pads, and Warner should glance it for four but misses. No matter, the fourth ball is full and Warner lofts over wide long-on! One bounce into the fence. Australia off to a flyer! Compounded when the ball leaps at him from a length, takes a thick edge, and flies fine through third man for another. 16 for Warner from the over!
1st over: Australia 9-0 (Warner 4, Finch 5) Wahab Riaz is on the broadcasters’ interview mic saying that they’ll pitch the ball up and look for swing under lights. But first with the ball is Mohammad Irfan, the seven-foot giant, and he exclusively bowls back of a length. The batsmen take a few sighters, steer singles and a two, then Finch stands up tall to clobber four on the square cut. That was too easy. Where is Wahab? Where’s Amir? The spinner Imad will bowl the second over.
It was laborious at times, but this is the template that Pakistan have used so successfully in the UAE. Bat first, have Babar cruise through most of the innings, find a late flurry from somewhere to get up around 150. Then use their spinners, pace change, and perhaps some reverse swing to defend it. It works there, but these are much nicer batting tracks in Australia, so it’s much less likely to work here. But Pakistan have a score to defend thanks to Iftikhar’s late intervention, and a quality and varied bowling attack. Australia have two very in-form opening batsmen, Finch and Warner. This should be good to watch.
20th over: Pakistan 150-6 (Iftikhar 62, Wahab 0) Wahab Riaz comes out as the professional runner, and hares up and back as Iftikhar finds two runs from each of the last two balls. No boundary, but he’s done a fine job with his 62 from 35 balls, getting Pakistan to 150.
A tactical run-out for Imad, desperate to get Iftihkar back on strike for the last couple of balls of the innings. The pair only got singles from the first three balls, so Imad was running for two no matter what on the fourth ball.
19th over: Pakistan 142-5 (Iftikhar 56, Imad 9) Kane Richardson to bowls his final over, and Iftikhar lofts him for six! Lovely straight hit, from a stable base, snapping through the line of the fuller ball and landing it over the rope! Richardson is having a dirty day, as it turns out, after riding high from his first over. The perils of this form of cricket. Next up, Iftikhar swings, edges, four! Top edge over the wicketkeeper, just over. Carey was searching for it but it had a couple of inches elevation too much.
So Richardson tries his wide yorker, but misses it. Carved over backward point for four! Warner is thinking of the catch, ran in, the ball dips on him at the last minute and he loses it in the lights. It bounces in front of him and through him. That raises the batsman’s first 50 in this format.
18th over: Pakistan 120-5 (Iftikhar 35, Imad 8) Mitchell Starc to close out, two overs left for him. Full, fast, and once more there’s only one boundary from the over. A nice one, Imad driving the full ball along the ground through cover, but Pakistan need a massive over at some stage to have something to bowl at, and they can’t find it.
17th over: Pakistan 114-5 (Iftikhar 35, Imad 2) Imad Wasim, the lefty all-rounder, is next in. Iftikhar takes the reins, steering Cummins away behind point for four. That’s the only boundary from the over though. He tries for a second, timing it out into the deep at square leg, but Smith drops the catch!
16th over: Pakistan 106-5 (Iftikhar 29) Another boundary from Agar! Two from the over, unheard of. Just enough width, and Iftikhar lifts him over cover, in between the two sweepers for four. Singles otherwise, until the last ball, when Babar turns to come back for the second.
Warner is in the deep at midwicket, does it sensationally. Charges in off the fence. Picks up one-handed. Stutters his feet to steady. Unleashes the throw. Hits the base of the stumps direct. Babar gets his 50th run, then is dismissed trying for his 51st.
15th over: Pakistan 97-4 (Babar 47, Iftikhar 23) Iftikhar goes! Richardson comes back to end the spin-twin section, and the hitherto quiet Pakistani batsman lifts him cleanly over mid-off for four. Then goes again, heaving over midwicket for six. Clean connection on a ground the size of the MCG, and lands it well back in the crowd. He nails the next two balls just as cleanly, along the ground this time, but Warner puts in a great sprint and dive at deep point, then McDermott gets around to save from long-on. Both times the batsmen take two. The over costs 14 without Babar scoring. That’s what this team needs, some support for their main man.
14th over: Pakistan 83-4 (Babar 47, Iftikhar 9) Zampa’s last over, and the singles continue! They’ve gone four overs without a boundary, Pakistan. This is a good batting surface, don’t get the wrong idea. They just can’t get going against this bowling. Zampa flights up the last couple of balls of his night’s work, and ends up with a tidy enough 0 for 31 from his four overs.
13th over: Pakistan 78-4 (Babar 45, Iftikhar 6) Five runs from the Cummins over, in ones and twos. There’s really no point to the way Pakistan are going about this.
12th over: Pakistan 73-4 (Babar 44, Iftikhar 2) Another outstanding over for Agar, four singles from it. He’s been absolutely miserly in every match of these two series, and grabbed two wickets thus far today.
Another cheap one! Babar was furious after his batting partner didn’t run back for a second from the first ball of the over. Asif tries to send the next ball from Agar over the fence to cheer up his captain, but Manuka Oval is one of the biggest playing surfaces in the world, and he’s comfortably held at deep midwicket.
11th over: Pakistan 69-3 (Babar 42, Asif 4) Having seen Australian teams so often lose their way against spin through the middle overs of limited-overs games in the last few years, it must be cheering for Justin Langer and company to see their own spinners dishing out the same. Zampa takes advantage of the match situation to keep them to singles: once, twice, thrice, four-ice? Fice? Quintuply? I don’t know. Five singles, then a deuce from the last ball as Asif drives too straight for the long-on sweeper to restrict.
10th over: Pakistan 62-3 (Babar 39, Asif 0) A carbon copy of the first game so far. Babar building a decent score but at a moderate clip, Asif Ali joining him at the halfway point with the top order wilting.
A rare boundary from Agar, as Babar waits back and sweeps it down to deep backward, beating Ben McDermott’s dive. But Agar gets some consolation from the fifth ball, following Rizwan with a fast flat ball as the batsman comes down the wicket and outside the line of leg, trying to give space to carve over cover. Instead the ball darts between bat and pad, and into Carey’s gloves.
9th over: Pakistan 56-2 (Babar 34, Rizwan 13) Time to go, at last. Rizwan is the first to drop the hammer, down on one knee to Zampa and dragging a swat shot away through midwicket, just beating the man at long-on who runs around. A single rotates the strike, then Babar comes skipping down the wicket and drives gloriously straight down the ground for four! That’s more like it. A baker’s dozen off the over.
8th over: Pakistan 43-2 (Babar 27, Rizwan 7) Ashton Agar now with the ball, left-arm orthodox and he’s been bowling very accurately in this series. He fields brilliantly off his first ball, diving across as Rizwan shouldered the ball back at him, then Agar flicks down the length of the pitch to Carey behind the stumps, and Rizwan just dives back into his ground. As so often this season, there is no boundary from Agar’s over. Five singles and a leg bye. Pakistan going at about five an over.
7th over: Pakistan 38-2 (Babar 25, Rizwan 5) Zampa came on to bowl during the Powerplay in Sydney and got carted by Pakistan’s batsmen. Today Finch holds him back to the seventh over as per convention for spinners. Not a bad time to bowl, and today they only take ones and twos from his first over rather than sixes.
6th over: Pakistan 32-2 (Babar 23, Rizwan 1) The brakes are well and truly on. Mohammad Rizwan to the middle, but it takes him four balls from Cummins to get off the mark with a single.
5th over: Pakistan 29-2 (Babar 21) Except that losing momentum is exactly what happens for Pakistan. Another quiet over, with Richardson bowling tightly and changing pace, and Haris Sohail only able to club a couple of runs to the deep. So he decides the last ball has to go, charges it, slogs to leg, and hits it a mile up in the air and straight back down to where it came from.
4th over: Pakistan 25-1 (Babar 20, Sohail 3) Haris Sohail comes out at three, and nudges the same number of runs. Pakistan can’t afford to let the momentum of their innings dip like they did on Sunday.
He dodged the golden duck, but another failure for Fakhar. Cummins the change bowler, went full, Fakhar tries to clear mid-off but it’s too low, and Warner closing down the angle can dive across and take a fairly comfortable catch.
3rd over: Pakistan 22-0 (Babar 20, Fakhar 2) That’s even better from Babar. Starc bowls short, not a bouncer but torso height. Outside off. Babar is already coming forward to drive, so from the front foot he carves with a horizontal bat through cover again! Four! And another, as Starc moves his line across so Babar lifts him over square leg, just using the pace to dink another boundary away.
2nd over: Pakistan 14-0 (Babar 12, Fakhar 2) Oh, gorgeous duo from Babar. The first two balls of Richardson’s over, one driven conventionally through the covers, the next forced off the back foot the same way. Richardson shortened his length for the second ball but it went the same way as the first. His third cuts back into Babar and nearly spins back onto the stumps from the thigh pad. No swing tonight. So he bowls the slow bouncer and gets muscled for a couple.
1st over: Pakistan 3-0 (Babar 1, Fakhar 2) Away we go. Mitch Starc has the ball, Babar the strike. And the first is a big full toss, overpitched looking for swing, but so fast that Babar can only block it away. The next is wider, and just as on Sunday, Babar reaches for it and zips it to third man for a run. Fakhar was gone for a golden duck the other day, and nearly doubles up, the ball almost sneaking through onto his pad. He gets a touch on it though, back to the bowler, and Babar has to dive back into the non-striker’s end. Again he’s tied up on his pads, but eventually Starc offers width and Fakhar just steers it square of third man for two, well run for the second.
England are also playing T20s in the southern part of the world, over in New Zealand. They managed to lose a game last night when they were cruising: needed about 42 from 30 with eight wickets in hand, but New Zealand put on the clamps. Here’s Ali Martin’s report.
Related: England snatch defeat from jaws of victory in third New Zealand T20
Both teams unchanged from Sunday afternoon.
Pakistan
Babar Azam
Fakhar Zaman
Haris Sohail
Mohammad Rizwan
Asif Ali
Iftikhar Ahmed
Imad Wasim
Shadab Khan
Wahab Riaz
Mohammad Amir
Mohammad Irfan
Babar Azam calls correctly, after some confusion with Aaron Finch who thought he had won, but Babar wants to bat and Finch wants to bowl so it doesn’t make a difference in the end. Babar is taking the straightforward route, get a total and put no pressure with early wickets. Finch thinks there might be a bit of dew later so he’d rather take the ball first.
It’s chilly in Canberra. 16 degrees at the moment, a low of 6 expected overnight. The Australians are mostly warming up in hoodies and beanies at the moment.
Evening from Australia; kindly adjust that greeting for your timezone. It’s cricket time again, as it has been every couple of days through these back-to-back T20 series that Australia has scheduled. Tonight, the second match against Pakistan, who are still in the hunt despite being thoroughly outplayed on Sunday night because rain saved them from a loss with 11 balls to spare. The Australian openers were well on track to chase down Pakistan’s low total, but didn’t face the five overs required to have the game formally recognised as a result before rain washed out the day.
Now Pakistan have the chance to regroup, while the Australians will look to carry on their recent dominant run, 3-0 over Sri Lanka and starting well here. The toss will take place in a minute.
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