Pat Cummins has lamented one of his side’s “worst” ever performances after Australia slumped to their biggest home ODI defeat in Friday night’s second match against Pakistan at the Adelaide Oval, where Marnus Labuschagne’s struggles with the bat this season continued. Labuschagne was one of five Aussie batters to fall to Pakistan quick Haris Rauf, who claimed 5-29 to help bowl the home side out for 163 after just 35 overs.
In reply, Pakistan’s openers Saim Ayub (82 off 71) and Abdullah Shafique (64 not out) made light work of the paltry total to chase down Australia’s target with the loss of just one wicket. Pakistan’s openers put on 137 runs between them in just 20.1 overs before Adam Zampa claimed Australia’s only wicket of the match to remove the impressive Ayub.
That was as good as it got for the home side though, with Pakistan wrapping things up six overs later to seal victory with a whopping 141 balls to spare. Australia had only suffered nine-wicket losses at home three times before – the last one coming in 1992 when the West Indies won with 69 balls remaining.
Australia also suffered a similar defeat to South Africa in 1992 and the West Indies again in 1984, but Pakistan’s victory with 141 balls to spare is Australia’s worst loss at home by some way. Rauf (5-29) was the chief destroyer in Adelaide with his second five-wicket haul in ODIs after dismissing Josh Inglis, Labuschagne, Aaron Hardie, and Glenn Maxwell in a devastating spell that saw the Aussies collapse from 2-79 to 7-129.
Australia’s openers Matt Short (19) and Jake Fraser-McGurk (13) both started brightly again but failed to silence critics of their gung-ho batting approach. Short was caught by Babar Azam off the bowling of Shaheen Shah Afridi, who also trapped Fraser-McGurk LBW when the young gun tried to smash a ball to the boundary that probably wasn’t there to be hit.
“It is probably a ball you should be defending. It probably deserved a bit of respect, that delivery,” Mark Waugh said on Fox Cricket. “It is a balancing act, isn’t it? He will be so frustrated. Sometimes when you see the ball so well early on, you do tend to relax. Sometimes that overconfidence can come back to bite you. We have all been there.”
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Top-scorer Steve Smith (35) and Josh Inglis (18) were again asked to put on a partnership for Australia like they did in game one but Rauf had other ideas. The Pakistani quick first removed Inglis after he gloved a delivery down the leg side into the grateful clutches of wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan.
Marnus Labuschagne out cheaply again as struggles continue
That brought Labuschagne to the crease but for the second match in a row the Aussie Test star was undone by Rauf after edging one to Rizwan for just six. It continued a lean run of form this season for Labuschagne, who has only passed 50 once for Queensland in the Sheffield Shield. The Test star has a highest score of just 22 from his last five innings across red-ball and white-ball cricket and former Aussie cricket star Chadd Sayers says his form is worrying ahead of the five-Test series against India, starting in Perth on November 22.
“Harris Rauf again… he just brings a lot of energy. It looked like a good ball, it just left Marnus from a good length and his poor form continues, nicking that one to Rizwan,” Sayers said on SEN’s coverage. Even through the domestic start to the season he really hasn’t looked threatening has he? It’s not what we want to see with coming into an India series and the (five) Test matches.”
Labuschagne can take encouragement from his Test record at Perth’s Optus Stadium though, where he has 519 runs at an average of 103.80. Labuschagne will now turn his attentions to the first Test as he, Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Smith will all sit out Sunday’s deciding game in Perth, in a massive boost for Pakistan’s hopes of clinching the three-match ODI series.
Cummins’ men were fortunate that Zampa’s wicket spared them the ignominy of becoming the first Australian team to lose a white-ball match at home by 10 wickets. But the Australian captain pulled no punches when describing just how bad the loss was. “Wasn’t one of our best days,” Cummins said before adding: “We’ve been pretty good of late, but today was right up there with one of our worst, unfortunately.”
with AAP
