Australia made a mess of their batting and bowling tactics last night as they lost to Pakistan once more in the International Twenty20 series in the UAE.
The tourists restricted Pakistan to 6-147 despite picking a strange bowling attack and then fell 11 runs short in a chase which featured some truly curious strategies.
Batting second, the Aussies were extraordinarily cautious in the powerplay, scoring just 11 runs off the bat in the first five overs. D’Arcy Short made just two from 12 balls, Aaron Finch three from ten and then Chris Lynn allowed ten dots in his 12-ball knock. It was gobsmacking batting from three of the most attacking batsmen in Australia.
Not only was their normal aggression nowhere to be seen, but that trio did not even try to score singles, despite plenty of gaps in the infield. Whatever the thinking behind this confounding strategy, it was blatantly flawed.
By the time Short, Lynn and Finch had all departed after 6.3 overs, they had allowed the required run rate to balloon from a very manageable 7.4 runs per over to almost nine. Mitch Marsh (21 from 23 balls) struggled to get anywhere near matching this steep run rate and, even with Glenn Maxwell cruising along, Australia fell way behind the game.
They managed to give Pakistan a scare thanks to some ferocious striking from Maxwell (52 from 37) and handy tail-ender Nathan Coulter-Nile (27 from 17). When Coulter-Nile launched a monstrous 106-metre six from the first ball of the last over, Australia needed 17 from five balls. But prodigiously talented 18-year-old Pakistani quick Shaheen Afridi held his nerve and got rid of both Coulter-Nile and Maxwell to close out the match.
Even a special Glenn Maxwell knock wasn’t enough for the Aussies. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Earlier, Australia making the odd decision of stacking the side with pace bowlers. The tourists dropped left-arm spinner Ashton Agar for Mitch Marsh, which gave them four quick options and just one specialist spinner.
This decision went against the grain of modern strategies in international T20 cricket, which is utterly dominated by spinners – slow men account for nine of the top ten ranked bowlers in the world.
Australia’s decision to go pace-heavy was shown to be foolish, with their spinners conceding just 5.2 runs per over from their eight overs compared to a whopping 8.75 from their quicks.
Just when, you wonder, will Australia’s selectors finally recognise that spinners rule the roost in the shortest format? Even their part-time spinners did well last night, with D’Arcy Short and Glenn Maxwell combining to take 1-21 from four overs.
Which only made it even more confusing that, for this match in Asian conditions, Australia dropped Agar, who has been their most economical bowler in T20Is this year, going at a miserly 6.97 runs per over.
On the bright side, leg-spinner Zampa bowled better than he has in more than 12 months. After being hammered for six from his first delivery, a flighted offering which Mohammad Hafeez latched on to, Zampa adapted extremely well. He bowled quicker and flatter than in the first game and found a perfect in-between length which allowed the batsman to go neither forward nor back with confidence.
(AAP Image/SNPA, John Cowpland)
Short, too, bowled well and managed to consistently locate that same testing length. In the first match, it was Short who broke Pakistan’s main stand and yesterday he again got the big wicket, this time of Babar Azam (45). While he’s yet to fire with the bat in this series, Short has taken 2-29 from five overs to underline his all-round value in the shortest format.
The West Australian was extremely unlucky last night to cop a very poor decision, with Pakistani third umpire Shozab Raza making a mess of a run-out call.
When Aaron Finch struck a straight drive back at Imad Wasim it skimmed the spinner’s hand and hit the stumps at the non-striker’s end. Short’s bat looked to be grounded – at the very least there was no clear evidence it was not grounded – yet the third umpire watched just a single replay of the incident before making a very hasty decision.
In the end, though, that decision was not instrumental as Short was struggling with the bat and Australia’s top order lost the match on their own.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Turner bowled one over. It was a good over.
HR
Guest
Australia were doing poorly in a cricket match, and David Warner is very competitive. So is the rest of the team, but some of the team would do anything to win, even if it was not allowed by the laws of the game. So David Warner asked Cameron Bancroft to break the laws of the game by rubbing sandpaper on the cricket ball to make it swing more. Steve Smith knew that this was happening, but didn't stop it. Then they were caught, and were punished with very long suspensions from the game.
KenoathCarnt
Roar Rookie
Preferred lineup with banned players. Finch Khawaja Lynn Maxwell Cooper McDermott (wk) Turner/M.Marsh/Christian/Agar NCN Tye Stanlake Zampa/Ahmed Finch has quite a notorious record of lower scores when first starting off in T20, but make no mistake when he is going there are not many better. Khawaja is far more consistent then Short and was our best batsmen in the last T20 world cup. Cooper is a bit left field but he can pull of quite unusual shots and can offer a handy over.
shirtpants
Roar Guru
Yes but in those games we had both Warner and Smith and you have to take into account who we played and where. We've got the talent but selections and tactics are hampering the side in a big way
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
Tentative batting has been a big issue in the ODI side for two years now, good batsmen not backing themselves to take in the bowlers. The reason Australia had a very good record in T20Is in the 18 months prior to this series is that they were playing fearless cricket and really going after bowlers. Hopefully now with this series already decided we'll see the Aussie batsmen loosen up tomorrow and just go after the Pakistan bowlers.
Baggy_Green
Roar Pro
The 20th over in both matches have been very expensive..that has meant pakistan carrying all the momentum in the break. The tentativeness in batting is back !!! and hence the collapses . In the tests also khawaja and finch were positive with their footwork , even while defending and scored the runs well. This tentativeness and poking around is causing unbelievable harm to the side
Ben
Roar Rookie
Maxwell has to bat in the top 3.
James
Guest
How above or below the norm average against spinners and quicks is that? For Australia and other nations. That difference seems massive though maybe its quite similar across all nations.
mrrexdog
Roar Guru
The Australian team that played during the tri series in February was the best performing Australian batting lineup in Twenty20 cricket I’ve ever seen, Australian won every game that series and Warner’s captaincy had a lot to do with it. Finch has won just 3 of the 8 games he’s captained since taking over this year, 2 of those wins were against Zimbabwe.
Terry McKenna
Guest
I can’t believe Australia’s attitude they are galaxy’s away from England and Pakistan. What about attacking fields, attacking bowlers ( including spinners, Lyon, Swepson, Pope etc. ) and go out and play your shots and put pressure on the bowlers and fielders. If they still loose they at least didn’t die in a whimper soft, proding, frustratingly run outs for singles type of cricket. Go for the fence for crying out loud, and trust those behind you to do the same. Selections for test and this series are terrible honestly. They are clueless. Australia have so far to go because of inept management and direction and selection.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
Finch is the world's best T20I batsman and has achieved that ranking as an opener, there's no way I'd hide him down at 5
golfunion
Roar Rookie
I completely agree Nobbler, I still cannot fully explain the events of that day to my 6 and 8 year old grandsons.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
I think it's the latter I think they were spooked by the first game and decided to take things very easy for the first 4-5 overs and then launch from there. But if you're going to do that you have to at least work the singles and twos and still try to score at 6 runs per over. Instead what happened was farcical
Nobbler
Guest
The best Australian team is one without the poison dwarf.
mrrexdog
Roar Guru
I think our best team has Warner opening, with finch in the middle order. Turner’s bowling again and would be a good option for the second spinner. Warner’s got a good record as Twenty20 captain, just don’t let him have any other leadership positions. Warner (c) Short Lynn Maxwell Finch Turner Wicket keeper (whoever’s best suited to batting at 7) The bowling attack would consist of Tye, Zampa and Starc plus one of Behrendorf, Coulter-Nile, Stanlake or an extra spinner if they’re felling adventurous.
Mitcher
Guest
Capital letters means correct.
anon
Roar Pro
I'm very quickly losing faith in Langer. He seems out of his depth. Strange tactics, strange selections, already playing favourites. Maxwell did what he was asked to do. Scored a solid 50 at a nice clip. I'm sure Langer will keep his word and consider Maxwell for the longer forms of the game.
mrrexdog
Roar Guru
Since the 2016 world Twenty20 Australia has played 20 T20 games. With Aaron Finch as captain 11 games, 4 wins, 7 loses. With David Warner as captain 9 games, 8 wins, 1 loss.
Ouch
Roar Rookie
The Wallabies of world cricket
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
I wouldn' t stay up to watch a T20 but its the same story looking at the scorecard. Australia pick too many bowling options, if Australia had good t20 spinners they would be in the IPL. Pick 6 bowling options, then work around that. The lack of batting depth led to the nervous start where they didn't score.