PAK vs AUS: Australia name Daniel Vettori as spin consultant for white-ball leg

Former New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori has been appointed as Australia’s spin consultant for the white-ball leg of their tour against Pakistan. Cricket Australia confirmed Vettori’s inclusion in the coaching set-up and the 43-year-old will serve as a spin-bowling consultant for the Aussies in Lahore, where they will play three ODIs and a T20I. He will take over the responsibilities and start working with the white-ball squad in Melbourne before the team takes off to Pakistan.

Vettori’s most recent international coaching appointment was as the spin bowling coach for Bangladesh between 2019 and 2021. Prior to Australia’s tour to India in 2017, he was also a member of their set-up for a brief period. Australia had named Pakistan-born Australian cricketer Fawad Ahmed as the team’s consultant before the commencement of the three-match Test series.

Vettori has taken 362 Test wickets, 305 ODI wickets, and 38 T20I wickets in his international career. He also has coaching experience in the shorter format of the game with the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Barbados Royals at the Indian Premier League and Caribbean Premier League respectively.

Australia and Pakistan are currently playing the final game of the Test series and will be facing each other for a three-match ODI series next. Both the games so far, played at Rawalpindi and Karachi, have been drawn. The third and final game will turn out to be a decider game for this series.

Lahore to host white-ball leg instead of Rawalpindi

In a recent turn of events, Lahore will now be hosting the white-ball series of the tour after Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad stated that the matches were shifted from Rawalpindi. The action was taken due to the unstable political conditions in Pakistan as Prime Minister Imran Khan is likely to face a no-confidence vote at the time of the schedule of the white-ball series, which starts next week.

The final decision will be taken by the two boards, as the government can not intervene in the matter. The three ODIs are to be played on March 29, March 31, and April 2 followed by a one-off T20I scheduled on April 5.

Pakistan also announced leg-spinner Zahid Mahmood as the replacement for the injured left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz in their white-ball squad. The decision was taken after Nawaz did not manage to recover from his foot-injury that he suffered during the Pakistan Super League 2022. As a result, Nawaz was ruled out of the series.