Australia’s cricketers clean sweep Pakistan in T20 series

Hobart (Australia): Marcus Stoinis bludgeoned 61 not out of 27 balls as Australia swept Pakistan 3-0 in the Twenty20 series with a seven-wicket victory in the final game on Monday.

The hosts had a 29-run win in a rain-shortened seven-overs-a-side match in the first T20 in Brisbane, before fast bowler Spencer Johnson then grabbed a career-best 5-26 to propel Australia to a 13-run win.

Stoinis smacked five sixes – three in one over off Shaheen Shah Afridi — and five fours as Australia raced to 118-3 in 11.2 overs. Fast bowlers Shah Afridi (1-43) and Haris Rauf (0-34) conceded 77 runs off their combined six overs in a one-sided game.

Earlier, Pakistan lost nine wickets for 56 runs on the way to a meagre total of 117 in 18.1 overs despite Babar Azam (41) and Haseebullah Khan (24), one of two changes made from the second game, scoring at a brisk pace in the powerplay.

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 “It’s been a great week,” Australia captain Josh Inglis said. “We’ve had a lot of fun as a group. When Stoinis is going like that, he is really hard to stop.”

Haseebullah replaced regular white-ball captain Mohammad Rizwan and Salman Ali Agha took over as Pakistan’s fourth T20 skipper in 2024. Left-arm fast bowler Jahandad Khan was preferred to Naseem Shah.

Leg-spinner Adam Zampa (2-11) ignited Pakistan’s slide when he had Haseebullah caught at short fine leg. He then clean bowled Babar with a sharp googly.

Babar surpassed Virat Kohli’s Indian tally of 4,188 runs in T20s and moved up to second place with 4,192 in 126 games. Rohit Sharma leads the way with 4,231 in 159 matches.

Aaron Hardie (3-21) removed Sydney Usman Khan when he holed out at deep cover for three, while Salman played across the line against the fast bowler and was out leg before.

Shah Afridi smashed two fours and a six in his quickfire 16 and helped Pakistan cross the 100-run mark. Australia’s player of the series Johnson (2-24) wrapped up the innings by clean bowling No. 11 Sufiyan Muqeem.

Australia openers Jake Fraser-McGurk (18) and Matthew Short (2) fell inside the batting powerplay before Inglis (27) and Stoinis hurried the run chase.

Inglis couldn’t clear short fine leg as he tried to scoop Abbas Afridi in the 10th over before Stoinis hit three sixes and a four in Shah Afridi’s one over to complete the win.

Pakistan won the preceding ODI series 2-1 but its struggle in T20s continued. It was knocked out in the group stage of the World Cup in June.

 “It’s obviously a big achievement winning the ODI series but we could have done much better in the T20s,” Salman said. “I think in the middle overs, we didn’t capitalize on the start.”