Bowling Wordplay
Grade: A-
A humbled Australia wielded a hefty axe on the way to Perth for the final ODI, sacking Pat Cummins, Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood from the side thrashed in the second match. (How did they get such a hungry-for-the-blood-of-senior-cricketers axe through airport security? A question for the Aviation Security Service, for sure.)
Into the team came a mishmash of n00bs, enthusiastic net bowlers and Perth Stadium raffle winners. Would this be enough to counter the surging Pakistan side?
Of course not. Pakistan asked the Australians to bat first and duly repeated their bowling performance from the second match (ie, falling immediately behind the over rate, but caring not one iota because they knew they’d never get anywhere near having to bowl the full fifty overs).
Once again, it was Haris Raufing up the Aussies. But this time, around there was also high quality Naseem bowling, which the Australian batters were unable to handle. A Shaheen-y new ball? Yep - that proved challenging too.
Fast, accurate bowling from fast, accurate bowlers whose names lend themselves to fast, accurate bowling wordplay?
Beautiful.
