Australia captain Aaron Finch joked about the visitors being relieved at the thought of not having to bowl to Pakistan skipper Babar Azam anymore, at least in the near future, as they wrapped up the historic tour of the Asian nation with a victory in the one-off T20I in Lahore.
Australia rounded off its first tour to Pakistan in 24 years with a three-wicket victory in the one-off Twenty20 on Tuesday.
Captain Aaron Finch smashed 55 and anchored Australia to 163-7 with five balls to spare as Ben McDermott flicked Haris Rauf to backward square leg for a boundary.
Nathan Ellis picked up 4-28 and pulled Pakistan back to 162-8 after Babar Azam continued his run of golden form and struck 66 off 46 balls when Finch won the toss and elected to field first.
Babar had scored 390 runs in the 3-Test series, 276 runs in the ODI series and followed it up with a classy 66 in the T20i match against Australia, reiterating his status as one of the best batters across all formats of the game.
“We were happy with that, after the start they got, we know that Babar and Rizwan – they are fantastic at the top of the order. Anything under 180 we were happy and Cameron Green turned it around with those wickets. Glad that we don’t have to bowl to Babar anymore,” he said.
Marnus Labuschagne, Ben Dwarshuis and Cameron Green were all awarded their T20 debuts on Tuesday.
“Really good sign of things to come for our white-ball team. Everything we do will be with one eye on the World Cup – both in the T20 format and the ODIs. Really proud of the entire group, we have been in bubbles and other things but the resilience shown over a couple of years has been fantastic. To see so many youngsters come into the Australian team and do well is exciting for the future,” he added.
