Australia Cricket Team would be confused and might even feel the nerves in the wake of losing to India at the Oval on Sunday and the side would hope to come back to winning ways as they face Pakistan in their next match at the ICC World Cup 2019 at County Ground Taunton on Wednesday.
Adding to their heap of problems, all-rounder Marcus Stoinis has been ruled out of their match against Pakistan and Mitchell Marsh has been included as a standby.
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On the other hand, Pakistan had their previous match against Sri Lanka washed off after the Safaraz Ahmed-led side paralyzed England owing to a productive all-round team effort in their first.
The forecast also predicts that light showers are expected on the day and fans wouldn’t want to see third washout in the third consecutive day of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.
Pakistan’s bowling is so powerful that England’s batting line-up, arguably one of the best in ODIs at the moment, confronted some harsh truths about their own strengths and weaknesses. Pakistan’s bowling will be in for another challenge as they face yet another solid batting line-up.
Australia found a major hitter in Alex Carey in their match against India and he could be very useful to Aaron Finch lower down the order. Former captain Steven Smith would remain the go-to batsman for skipper Finch as the batsman has two half-centuries in the same number of outings.
Australia’s batting ability was most noticeable when they battled, once again like in every World Cup ever, from 79/5 to post a score of 288 runs – credit to Smith’s gritty 73 and Nathan Coulter-Nile’s outstanding performance with the bat. Thus, Pakistan can’t simply succeed with early wickets and will need to take wickets at regular intervals right through the match.
In the event that Pakistan stays steady all through, there are high possibilities that they can ease past Aussies. Yet, a great deal relies upon how the pitch stays at Taunton and which one of the Pakistan batting turns up on the day – the one against West Indies which was bundled out for 100-odd runs or the one against England which accumulated a mountain of them.
Live action awaits us from 3:00 pm onwards from the County Stadium, Taunton.
Squads
Australia: Aaron Finch (c), Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey (wk), Nathan Coulter-Nile, Pat Cummins, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, David Warner, Adam Zampa
Pakistan: Sarfaraz Ahmed (c/wk), Shoaib Malik, Babar Azam, Mohammad Hafeez, Fakhar Zaman, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Amir, Haris Sohail, Imam-ul-Haq, Asif Ali, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Hasnain