Pakistan gained a historic win against Australia after seven years in their 2nd match of the ongoing ODI series. PAK spinner Haris Rauf totally thrashed the Aussies middle-order in his hair-raising spell in Melbourne. With this match, the current ODI champions failed to retain the home victory since the first match of the series. The host’s poor batting performance led to an early collapse by putting only 163 on the board. In contrast, Rauf’s incredible bowling and sparkling innings from Saim Ayub and Abdullah Shafique led Pakistan to take charge of the series. Let’s delve into the complete highlights of this match.
AUS vs PAK 2nd ODI: Complete Highlights of the match
The host’s opening duo Jake Fraser-McGurk and Matt Short became the prey of Shaheen Afridi with just 41 runs on the board.
Although Australia’s top batter Steven Smith tried to hold the grip of the match the back-to-back wickets of Marnus Labuschagne (6) and Josh Inglis (18) put them under immense pressure. Eventually, after Smith’s departure all-rounders Glenn Maxwell, Aaron Hardie as well as Skipper Pat Cummins failed to combat the attack of Haris Rauf.
Rauf who was named the Player of The Match got a 5-wicket haul by giving only 27. On top of that PAK’s Shaheen Afridi claimed 3 wickets while Naseem Shah and Muhammad Hasnain had one each leading the host towards a catastrophic defeat since 2017.
Rauf has claimed eight wickets in the series till now with an average of 12.00.
The Greens showed the same resilience with bat as well, chasing the target of 163 in only 26.3 overs.
The powerful knock of 82 youngster Saim Ayub smashing five fours and six sixes made their victory quite inevitable. After Ayub headed back to the pavilion Abdullah Shafique (64*) and Babar Azam (20*) showed equal effort in gaining the victory with nine wickets.
In fact, it could be more devastating for Australia if they lost by ten wickets which they haven’t had in a home match. Thanks to Adam Zampa the record is still under their cap.
The next and final match of the series is set to take place on November 10 at Optus Stadium, Burswood. After the ODI series, they will have another face-off in the T-20 format from 14th November.
