On Sunday, November 10, Pakistan defeated Australia in Perth by 8 wickets to clinch the three-game ODI series 2-1 after losing the first game in Melbourne. This also happened to be their first ODI series win on the Aussie soil since 2002.
During the series, Pakistan troubled the home side in all three matches while Australia scraped through the first match to get a two-wicket win. Youngster Saim Ayub top scored for Pakistan in the series at an average of 41.66 while Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah all impressed with their pace.
Babar Azam looked good in all three games as well, finishing not out in the final two.
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What did Kevin Pietersen advice PCB?
Following the ODI series win for Pakistan in Australia, England legend, Kevin Pietersen tweeted out a message to Pakistan cricket to keep their politics aside and sort all the negative noise around the players while congratulating them.
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Pakistan WIN in Australia.
This is the reason they HAVE TO sort out all the negative ‘noise’ and help the talent show off their skills.
Put the politics aside and let the cricket do the talking!— Kevin Pietersen🦏 (@KP24) November 10, 2024
Why did Kevin Pietersen mention about politics in Pakistan cricket?
In the recent 12-18 months, following a string of poor results for Pakistan right from the 2023 ODI World Cup in India followed by the Australia Test tour, a loss against the USA and getting knocked out in the group stage, getting clean sweeped by Bangladesh in a home Test series to conceding over 800 runs in an innings, Pakistan players and the management had been under a lot of scrutiny.
The run of poor performances led to raised eyebrows around the fraternity where then skipper Babar Azam was also blamed for selfish performances and groupism in the team. The PCB also faced backlash for constantly backing the non-performers and keeping the youngsters away from the team.
Babar was removed as white ball captain after the 2023 ODI World Cup, only to be brought back against before the 2024 T20 World Cup. After a disastrous outing, he resigned.
Since the PCB had become stricter in the last couple of months and dropped Babar, Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah, they were able to produce a comeback win in the Test series against England and a re-energized trio returning to internationals helped them clinch an ODI series in Australia as well.
Adding to that, domestic performers like Kamran Ghulam, Sajid Khan, and Noman Ali alongside youngsters like Saim Ayub have been linchpins in this turnaround.
Hence, the English legend came up with a congratulatory tweet while advising the PCB of keeping politics and cricket far away from each other.
Up next, Pakistan will face Australia in three T20I games which will be followed by their Zimbabwe white-ball tour.
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