After Australia’s effortless victory against Pakistan in the first ODI, the two sides moved to the MCG, where things became less effortless and not at all victorious for the home side, as Pakistan chased down their target with 14 balls and six wickets to spare.
Here are the ratings for the second ODI between Australia and Pakistan.
Indian squads
Grade: A
Much of the attention was taken away from this ODI when Australia’s touring squad to India was announced earlier in the day.
Overall, it was an unsurprising squad, containing the usual quotas of Mitches and Marshes. The exciting bonus Mitchell this time around was Swepson, who was obviously selected in the squad to anagrammatically counteract the possibility of ‘pitch mellowness’.
Based on the squad chosen, I fully expect the team for the first Test to be:
M Renshaw
G Maxwell (c)
S Marsh
P Handscomb
M Marsh
U Khawaja (w)
M Swepson
S O’Keefe
N Lyon
J Bird
A Agar
That’s a pretty good Australian side. I’m confident they can keep the damage to 0-4.
Chris Lynn
Grade: C
Of course, the worst thing about the squad for India is that it seriously undermines Australia’s chances in the upcoming home T20 series against Sri Lanka, which takes place almost simultaneously with the first Test against India.
With all those players in India preparing for Tests, that means some less deserving players will get a Twenty20 cap. And I think that demeans the grand history of the sturdy yellow.
Still, it will hopefully give Chris Lynn a chance to captain the Australian T20 side. Because, sadly, he won’t be touring India – or ‘Lynndia’, as it would surely have become following a patented Lynn onslaught.
This, all, of course, assumes that he recovers from the neck Lynnjury that kept him out of this particular ODI.
Will we ever get tired of adapting everyday words to be Chris Lynn-specific? Of course not. The very idea is Lynnconceivable.
Jun-Aid
Grade: B+
Australia won the toss and batted first, deciding to stick to their plan from the first match of losing as many top order wickets as they could, as quickly as possible.
This time it was Junaid Khan who did the early damage, dismissing the openers David Warner and Usman Khawaja, before later running out Mitchell Starc.
Junaid, as most of you probably know, is named after Jun-Aid, the legendary concert where Australia’s best musical acts came together to support Mark Waugh.
The accompanying charity single, ‘Do They Know It’s Boxing Day’ was released following the younger Waugh’s four ducks on the 1992 Sri Lanka tour and was number one on the ARIA charts for nine weeks. It’s perhaps best remembered for Ted Mulry’s chilling lyric, where he sang ‘today, thank Bradman it’s them instead of you’.
Mitchell Marsh
Grade: D
But enough of my nonsense about Jun-Aid. Because there was plenty of nonsense on the field, with Mitch Marsh coming out to bat at number four following those dismissals of Warner and Khawaja.
Needless to say, he fell for a first ball duck. And would later go on to bowl six overs for the figures of 0/32 as Australia failed to defend 220. He then also managed to rule himself out of the rest of this ODI series with an injury.
A genuinely spectacular effort from Marsh to spend the entire day rubbing it in the faces of the 25 million or so of us who could have just about matched that effort but weren’t selected to tour India.
Mitchell Marsh is the hero we deserve and the one we need right now.
DRS
Grade: B+
Pakistan’s pursuit of Australia’s lowly total went off mostly without a hitch, thanks primarily to a solid 72 from 104 balls by the new captain Mohammad Hafeez.
Having said that, there were a few concerning hiccups in the chase, with Hafeez and Babar Azam falling within a few balls of one another with 80 runs still required. Also, a caught behind decision against Shoaib Malik was crucially overturned on DRS.
A good thing for Pakistan, then, that they had a review remaining with which to do so. Because when Australia had batted, Glenn Maxwell had tricked them into wasting their review early. Maxwell had hoodwinked the Pakistan captain into reviewing for LBW a ball that had struck him outside the line of off-stump, but which was given as runs, before then being corrected to leg byes but also checked to see if it went for four.
Man, India’s not going to know what’s hit them, are they?
Anyway, Maxwell’s review robbery denied Pakistan chances to overturn both Matthew Wade and Pat Cummins at various stages when Australia batted, although neither of the pair could exploit Maxwell’s sly cunning and make a big total.
Ultimately, Maxwell will be disappointed he couldn’t similarly turn the game in Australia’s favour by duping Pakistan into wasting an early review while they batted too. Not sure why he didn’t. Maybe he just needed some pickle juice.
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