Australia diffuse Wahab, Amir onslaught to snatch win

Wahab Riaz and Mohammad Amir fought valiantly with bat and ball to give Pakistan more than a big chance of winning their second group stage match of the ICC World Cup but a David Warner century and some excellent fast bowling from Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc saw Australia win by 41 runs at Taunton on Wednesday.

1st Innings

Batting first, Australia made an excellent start with Warner and captain Aaron Finch putting on a 146-run opening stand. But Amir led the Pakistani fightback as he took the wicket of Finch when he was on 82.

From there, regular wickets fell though Warner reached his century. But the left-hander also departed when the score was on 242 after scoring 107 off 111 deliveries in an innings that included 11 boundaries and one maximum. He was adjudged man-of-the-match for his innings, which is also his second World Cup century.

With 12 overs left to play and six wickets in hand, Australia looked well set to score close to 350, but Amir made inroads as he finished with career-best figures of 5/30 off his ten overs. It was also his first five-wicket haul in One Day Internationals (ODIs).

The Aussies eventually finished with a total of 307 before being bundled out in the 49th over.   

2nd Innings

In reply, Pakistan lost opener Fakhar Zaman for a duck with the team score on two in the third over as he became the first of three wickets that Cummins took. Babar Azam and Imam-ul-Haq took the score to 56 before Babar was dismissed by Nathan Coulter-Nile after scoring 30.

Imam continued to take on the Australian bowling, playing some lovely shots and forming an 80-run partnership with Mohammad Hafeez but just after scoring a well composed half-century, he too was dismissed with the score on 136.

Australia then chipped in with three more quick wickets - Hafeez (46), Shoaib Malik (0), and Asif Ali (5) - as Pakistan were staring down the barrel with a big defeat looming. Captain Sarfaraz Ahmed then held fort with Hasan Ali, to take the score to exactly 200 before Ali departed after scoring a quickfire 32 off 15 deliveries.

Wahab Riaz then joined his captain to form a dangerous partnership of 64 runs in 63 balls in a bid to win the game before Riaz was dismissed by Starc in his final spell. It was a timely move by captain Finch who had three overs left from his left-arm quick. Starc then cleaned up the tail to ensure the Pakistani fightback went in vain.

Points Table

This victory now puts Australia in second position with six points from four games as Pakistan lurk near the bottom with three points from four games at eighth spot. New Zealand still lead the table with six points from three games and a strong net run rate of 2.16 and they will face one of the tournament favourites India in their next match on Thursday.  

Key Stats

• Mohammad Amir, a player that was a last-minute inclusion in the Pakistan World Cup squad is now the top wicket-taker in the World with ten wickets with both the Australian quicks Starc and Cummins at nine wickets each.

• David Warner is now the second highest run-scorer in the World Cup with 255 runs from four innings while Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan is still top with 260 runs from three innings.

• With this result, teams have scored 300-plus batting first 84 times, and they have won 75 of those.

Brief scores: Australia 307 in 49 overs (David Warner 107, Aaron Finch 82; Mohammad Amir 5-30, Shaheen Afridi 2-70) beat Pakistan 266 in 45.4 overs (Imam-ul-Haq 53, Wahab Riaz 45; Pat Cummins 3-33, Mitchell Starc 2-43) by 41 runs.
Brief scores: Australia 307 in 49 overs (David Warner 107, Aaron Finch 82; Mohammad Amir 5-30, Shaheen Afridi 2-70) beat Pakistan 266 in 45.4 overs (Imam-ul-Haq 53, Wahab Riaz Pat Cummins 3-33, Mitchell Starc 2-43) by 41 runs.