Steven Smith rues poor batting performance for the loss in Melbourne

After a string of 16 losses across all formats, Pakistan finally had something to cheer in their Tour Down Under as they defeated Steven Smith and Co by 6 wickets in the 2nd ODI at the MCG. Comeback man Junaid Khan and Mohammad Amir provided the visitors with the ideal start, picking early wickets and courtesy their brilliant spells Pakistan managed to restrict Australia to 220. Stand-in-skipper Mohammad Hafeez then played a terrific innings of 72 to ensure Pakistan reached the victory target without many hiccups.

Australian captain Steve Smith waged a lone battle it was due to his innings of 60 Australia managed to reach 220. Speaking at the press conference Smith was visibly very disappointed with Australia’s performance. “I thought it was probably a 260-odd wicket, and we weren’t able to (achieve that). It was quite two-paced and quite hard to score. So, we needed to form a few partnerships, and take it deep to be able to have a bit of a launching pad, and we weren’t able to do that, we lost wickets in clumps, and weren’t able to get partnerships thereafter.” Smith was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.

That’s happened two games in a row, to be fair. It’s [our batting] been pretty ordinary, taking Matthew Wade aside in Brisbane. Something we need to look at in Perth, we need to start forming some partnerships to get the scores thereafter.” Steve Smith revealed that it was the lack of application of the batsmen that cost them the game and pointed that how T20 approach has hurt them in the last couple of games.

“I think we have been in a bit of a rush, to be honest, and few players coming back from BBL. I guess there’s no excuse for the Test players, but I think we have been in a bit of a rush, we need to grind it in a little bit and give ourselves a chance and form some partnerships. So that we have got that power in the sheds to go hard in the backend, because we know we have got plenty of power, most of them have been back in the shed by the time we need to go. Give ourselves a bit of an opportunity, and hopefully, we will be able to go bit better in Perth.”

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All-rounder Mitchell Marsh has been ruled out of the remaining matches of the VB series but Smith is optimistic about the fact that Marsh will return strongly and will play a major role in their tour of India. “Obviously, now he has had an ongoing issue with his shoulder, and we (are) giving him some time off to get that right. He could be a very key player for us in India. He hasn’t been able to bowl at the speeds he would have liked, and we know how important speed is in India, particularly with the ball reversing. We need to get that right,” Smith said.

Stand-in-skipper Mohammad Hafeez lauded his fast bowlers for restricting the hosts to a below-par total. “Our bowlers really did the job for us earlier, because that was really important to restrict Australia to the score we as a batting unit could chase that. 250 on this track was looking a bit of a par score because it was not coming on to the bat,” Hafeez said. “And then I believe personally everyone responded very well. As a bowler (bowling unit), we kept that pressure on and that really worked for us in this game,” Hafeez said.