Australia begin their first tour of Pakistan for some 24 years on Friday when the two nations compete in a historic and hugely impactful opening Test of three which will hopefully pave the way for Pakistan to be an international cricket nation to all once again.
While there will be plenty of fanfare of a side the calibre and stature of the Australians playing Test cricket in Pakistan again, these three matches are part of the World Test Championship so they carry a lot of meaning in their own right.
Pakistan
This series is clearly a big deal for Pakistan cricket but the one thing they won’t want is to have this opening match built up so much and then fail to perform. The cricket public in Pakistan have waited ages for a leading nation to come and tour so this is a big deal but the players need to distance themselves from that and ensure that they focus on what is in front of them, which is an Australia side who are in their first Test outing since retaining The Ashes.
Pakistan have a few injuries to contend with in their bowling attack so those who step up for this match are going to need to get to grips with conditions quickly and apply pressure to the Australia batters. There is naturally going to be more pressure on the Pakistan batters in this series but they go into this match having dominated Bangladesh in their last red ball series so they do at least have some winning form in recent times.
Australia
Australia might only have finished The Ashes six or so weeks ago but so much has gone on since then that you could be forgiven for thinking that ended six months ago. Their coach Justin Langer has been dispensed with and is yet to be permanently replaced while Australia have been playing plenty of T20 cricket so they will need to get their heads onto red ball action and block out everything that has happened in recent times.
Such is modern cricket these days, Australia head into what is a big series for them in terms of their World Test Championship hopes without having played a warm up match and when you consider that they haven’t toured the country for 24 years the first thing they are going to need to do is adjust to the conditions, so it might be that we don’t see the best of Australia in this series until the second and third matches, particularly with the bat.
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Team News
Pakistan will be without Abil Ali, Hasan Ali and Faheem Ashraf for this opening match of the series. Haris Rauf was being lined up for a Test debut but he has tested positive for Covid which might open the door for Mohammad Wasim to play Test cricket for the first time.
Australian captain Pat Cummins all but confirmed his top seven with Usman Khawaja opening the batting but hasn’t yet decided on the identity of his bowling attack. With Cameron Green in the side they can play a second spinner but with Josh Hazlewood fit again he might get the nod.
Betting
Depending on where you bet you can get a player performance line on Mohammad Rizwan that is as low as 83.5 or as high as 102.5 and I prefer to take the over on the former. He is one of the best batters in world cricket right now and although most of his plaudits come in the 20 over sphere where he averages over 50 which is pretty ridiculous, he has a First-Class average over 43 and a rising Test average which is already 42 and only getting higher.
Rizwan comes into this series off the back of a fantastic PSL with the bat and although there is a change in pace in this format of the game, the keeper-batter is pretty offensive with the bat so he won’t need to make too many adjustments. He has scored good runs against Australia in other formats of the game and should get stuck in here. I’m pretty sure he’ll contribute to his scoring with the gloves too, mostly in catches on this surface rather than stumpings but even if he doesn’t he only needs to bat to his average to cover this line. Any catches he gets means he can have a below average game with the bat and still cover.
Tips
Back M.Rizwan’s Performance – Over 83.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betfair
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