Clinical Pakistan humble Australia to seal series
Led by half-centuries from Salman Agha and Usman Khan, backed up by three-wickets apiece by Abrar Ahmed and Shadab Khan, Pakistan registered a thumping 90-run win over Australia to secure a series-clinching 2-0 lead, their third successive series win at home. It was also their first T20I bilateral series win over Australia.
Saim Ayub blazed away to a quick start, but Pakistan were pegged back early after electing to bat, losing Sahibzada Farhan in the second over. His attempt to reverse sweep backfired and he was caught behind.
Nonetheless, Pakistan didn't lose the momentum provided by Saim. Agha got going early as well, pumping Matt Kuhnemann for a boundary down the ground off the first ball. Two overs later, he carted the spinner for a six and two more boundaries to provide Pakistan a blazing start in the powerplay, a phase in which they picked up 72 runs even though Ayub was dismissed legbefore by Cooper Connolly off the penultimate ball of the phase.
Adam Zampa continued his dominance over Babar Azam, dismissing him for the fifth time, this time trapping him legbefore for 2. The double dent did seize some momentum out of Pakistan's hands, but after a brief period of slowing down, Agha went on a rampage again, soon after bringing up his half-century.
In the 11th over, he creamed three boundaries off Xavier Bartlett before eventually falling to Sean Abbott two overs later on 76. By the end of the 14th over, Pakistan were limited to 129 for 4. Even as Australia managed to largely keep the boundary-scoring in check, Usman and Shadab Khan managed to get at least one hit past the boundary rope every over, the most expensive of those being Matthew Short's 16th over in which he was clubbed for two sixes.
In response, Australia never got a chance to breathe easy. Pakistan's spinners were relentless. Openers Mitch Marsh and Saim Ayub were dismissed off successive deliveries, and there was no stop to the parade of wickets that followed while Cameron Green attempted to put up a fight from one end.
Josh Inglis was trapped legbefore by Abrar and Matt Renshaw suffered a similar fate against Mohammad Nawaz. Connolly was cleaned up by Shadab, and by the 11th over, even Green's counter-attack was halted by Tariq.
Matthew Short put a slight fight towards the end, but there was no support to be found. Barring the last over of the powerplay, when Green took the attack to Saim, there was no point in the chase where Australia looked the part. They were eventually bundled out for 108 in the 16th over.
It was yet another contest in which the Australians choked against spin, losing all their 10 wickets to the tweakers. Of the 18 wickets they have lost this series, 16 have come against spin, with the other two being run outs.
Brief Scores: Pakistan 198/5 in 20 overs (Salman Agha 76, Usman Khan 53) beat Australia 108 in 15.4 overs (Cameron Green 35, Matthew Short 27; Abrar Ahmed 3-14, Shadab Khan 3-26) by 90 runs
