Ellis carves up as Aussies draw level against Pakistan
Aussie quick Nathan Ellis grabbed a career-best 4-33 on a tricky wicket to lead his side to series-levelling 41-run win over Pakistan in the second ODI in Lahore on Wednesday morning (AEST).
Batting first, the Aussies lost Alex Carey from the very first ball, but eventually posted 9-231 from their 50 overs on a pitch that had plenty of turn for the spinners and variable bounce for the seamers.
Nathan Ellis celebrates the wicket of Arafat Minhas. Getty Images
In reply, Pakistan slumped to 6-78 in the 17th over, but were eventually bowled out for 190 in 44 overs. The hosts won the first match by five wickets.
Half-centuries from captain Josh Inglis (51) and Cameron Green (53) were supported by Matthew Renshaw’s run-a-ball 43, while 19-year-old Oliver Peake added 31 off 32 balls after Pakistan captain Shaheen Shah Afridi won the toss and elected to field.
Left-arm spinner Arafat Minhas, who became the first Pakistani bowler to take five wickets in his debut ODI at Rawalpindi last Saturday, returned figures of 2-27.
Leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed had 2-34 while the pace duo of captain Afridi (3-36) and Haris Rauf (2-49) shared five wickets between them.
All-rounder Shadab Khan scored 71 off 104 balls and took the Pakistan chase deep before he was the last man dismissed — stumped down the leg side by Inglis off leg-spinner Tanveer Sangha.
Ellis also claimed the crucial wicket of Haris Rauf. Getty Images
Ellis struck in his first over when Maaz Sadaqat played the ball back onto his stumps, and then the fast bowler had Babar Azam (16) lbw off a delivery that nipped sharply into Pakistan’s premier batter in the fifth over.
Pakistan’s middle-order struggled to cope with the spin of Matthew Short (3-36) and slumped to 6-78 before Shadab and Arafat Minhas (33) revived the chase with a 59-run partnership.
But Ellis broke the stand when he had Minhas trapped lbw in the 32nd over. Shadab got to his fifth half-century in ODIs and struck two sixes against Green.
Ellis was awarded player-of-the-match honours.
Predicting a wicket that kept low and slow, Aussie selectors elected to pick just the one frontline seamer. Ellis said the wicket meant he had limited time to make the ball swing, before he would have to get creative to take wickets.
“I think when you’ve got the new ball on a wicket like this, you want to maximise it for as long as you can … which isn’t that long,” he said.
“You want to get it up and swing it for four, five, eight balls, and then you get into your work.”
Cameron Green top-scored for the Aussies AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary
Ellis suggested Pakistan’s preference for preparing such wickets makes it an outlier in world cricket, but it highlighted a strength in a relatively inexperienced Aussie side.
“It’s definitely different to the traditional one-day cricket we see around the world at the moment, but one of the strengths we see in this group is the willingness to be flexible, the willingness to adapt, and the willingness to try things a little bit out of the ordinary,” he said.
The series concludes Thursday night (AEST) at the same venue.
