Key events
8th over: Pakistan 67-3 (Babar 28, Agha 1) Just a single off an excellent Zampa over. Australia slamming the brakes on since the Powerplay. Babar cannot get any strike, takes a single off the first ball of the over and then Agha is tied down and can’t return the favour.
8th over: Pakistan 66-3 (Babar 27, Agha 1) Salman Agha joins a strike deprived Babar in the middle. Pakistan just starting to totter.
WICKET! Usman Khan c Ellis b Hardie 3 (Pakistan 64-3)
Aaron Hardie into the attack, Usman Khan dances down and gives himself space to hack into the off side but his flat bat shot finds Ellis on the sponge. A gift of a wicket that, not a pretty shot.
7th over: Pakistan 62-2 (Babar 26, Usman Khan 1) Khan arrives at the crease at nudges his first ball for a single to farm the strike off Babar.
WICKET! Haseebullah Khan c Short b Zampa 24 (Pakistan 61-2)
Adam Zampa is the man to prise the wicket for Australia! A googly is misread by Haseebullah Khan and spliced into the off side. Australia needed that and a newly bleached and shorn Zampa celebrates, minimally.
6th over: Pakistan 58-1 (Babar 23, Haseebullah 24) Nathan Ellis replaces Spencer Johnson and is immediately greeted with a scythe for four over point from Haseebullah. The makeshift opener squeezed for three behind square and plays a delightful late cut for three more. Lovely batting. Powerplay done and Australia in need of a breakthrough.
5th over: Pakistan 46-1 (Babar 22, Haseebullah 13) Marcus Stoinis chugs in, Alpine vast shoulders bursting out his shirt. Babar Azam purrs into action! Sixteen runs off the over and three Babar boundaries – a half volley driven handsomely down the ground, a flick fine off his pads and a glide wide of point. Pure class.
4th over: Pakistan 30-1 (Babar 10, Haseebullah 11) A tidy over from Johnson is blotted slightly by a top edge from Haseebullah that flies away over the keeper for four. Neither side pulling away from the other at the moment.
3rd over: Pakistan 24-1 (Babar 9, Haseebullah 6) Bartlett still spraying it around, a short and wide delivery is lashed wide of point for four by Haseebullah. The bowler tightens things up with a couple of well executed yorkers and Pakistan can only muster two more singles off the over. There’s no swing out there to speak of and the pitch looks flatter than a drunken karaoke session.
2nd over: Pakistan 18-1 (Babar 8, Haseebullah 1) Haseebullah Khan is the new batter. He eases his second ball to long on to pick up a single and keep strike.
WICKET! Sahibzada Farhan c Bartlett b Johnson 9 (Pakistan 17-1)
Johnson tests out the middle of the pitch with a bouncer, Farhan tries to swat it away but gets in a mess, sending a soft catch up in the air to midwicket where he is easily caught.
Spencer Johnson, fresh off his five-fer in the last match at Sydney, is starting from the other end. Back to earth with a bump! Farhan drives down the ground compactly for three and Babar launches the bowler back over his head for another superlative boundary… wait a minute though…
1st over: Pakistan 10-0 (Farhan 5, Babar 5) Xavier Bartlett has the ball in hand for Australia. We’ll have some seam to start. Play! Farhan clips through midwicket where a fumble allows a third run and brings Babar on strike. Four! No messing about from the Prince of Pakistani batting, a full ball is timed away off the pads for a boundary first ball. It’s a loosey goosey start from Bartlett who can’t find his radar. Pakistan take ten from the first over.
Here come the players, bright skies in Hobart, I don’t think the weather is going to get involved in this one. The word is that Sahibzada Farhan is set to open alongside Babar Azam for the visitors, can the two men get Pakistan off to a flier and put some pressure on this nascent Aussie side? Time to find out.
It looks like a beautiful evening in Hobart. We’ll have the first ball in a quarter of an hour. Excuse me for one second whilst I ‘compartmentalise’ a rowdy toddler and grind up some much needed Lavazza.
Forget about the previews coming out of Perth, the real action is here in Hobart tonight. Third T20I.
Let’s see if Nathan Ellis plays his first international in his adopted state #AUSvPAK pic.twitter.com/gH3NT3cUbf
— Josh Schönafinger (@joshschon) November 18, 2024
Pakistan win the toss and choose to bat first
Salman Agha wins the toss as Mohammad Rizwan is presumably putting his feet up for this one. The stand-in captain decides to have first use of the Hobart wicket.
Australia are unchanged whereas the visitors have handed a debut to southpaw pace bowler Jahandad Khan.
Teams:
Australia: Jake Fraser-McGurk, Matt Short, Josh Inglis (c & wk), Glenn Maxwell, Tim David, Marcus Stoinis, Aaron Hardie, Xavier Bartlett, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Spencer Johnson
Pakistan: Babar Azam, Sahibzada Farhan, Haseebullah Khan (wk), Usman Khan, Salman Agha (c), Irfan Khan, Abbas Afridi, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Jahandad Khan, Haris Rauf, Sufiyan Muqeem
Meanwhile, it looks like Jason Gillespie isn’t going to be axed. Not yet at least:
Whilst we wait for the coin toss, get your peepers around this:
Inside Hockley’s modest Jolimont office, within sight of the MCG, a sequinned pink and purple costume of a cartoon woman shaped like a cricket bat grabs your attention. It was worn by the backing dancers supporting Katy Perry at the landmark 2020 World Cup final and now occupies the corner.
Sitting opposite, Hockley adds one final thought. “It feels a bit premature, but I’ve been very fortunate, you’ve helped me reflect a bit,” he says. “One thing I’m not good at is celebrating our successes, I’m just very like ‘on to the next thing’. But I’m getting better at trying to celebrate everyone’s hard work.
And then the other bit is I’m not very good at enjoying the cricket and the event days, because you feel very responsible, and you just want to make sure everything’s right. So I’m determined to enjoy this summer.
Preamable
James Wallace
Hello and welcome to the final T20 between Australia and Pakistan from the Bellerive Oval in Hobart*
Australia have wrapped up the three match series already, Spencer Johnson pocketing 5-26 in Sydney to see Josh Inglis’ transitional side go 2-0 up with one to play. There’s no such thing as a dead rubber in the modern game though, Pakistan will be looking to end their white ball tour on a high after a rousing victory in the ODI series and plenty of Australia’s young players will be looking to put in strong performances that stick in the minds of the selectors with the big guns due to come back to the fold imminently.
Play begins in a little over half an hour, 7pm AEDT and 8am GMT. I’ll be back with the news of the teams and toss very soon.
*By way of a seen-better-days sofa in a murky dawned London town. Wish you were here?