WATCH: Babar Azam bamboozled, clean bowled by Adam Zampa in 1st ODI vs Australia at MCG
Former Pakistan captain Babar Azam was making a comeback into the national side after being ‘rested’ for the last two Tests of the three-match series against England last month. Babar has been removed from captaincy of the white-ball teams of Pakistan and wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan is the new ODI captain.
Pakistan began their white-ball tour of Australia with the first ODI at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Monday (November 4). Australian captain Pat Cummins won the toss and put Pakistan in to bat first.
The visitors were in immediate trouble with Mitchell Starc rocking the Pakistan top-order early by dismissing both openers Saim Ayub and Abdullah Shafique with just 24 runs of the board. Babar walked into bat at No. 3 in the order and looked in sparkling touch.
The former Pakistan ODI skipper looked a class apart from rest of the Pakistan batters, smashing four delightful boundaries on way to scoring 37. However, who averages over 56 in ODI cricket, was bamboozled by Australian leg-spinner Adam Zampa.
The Aussie tweaker, slipped in a quicker and straighter ball which kept a tad low, and Babar failed to read the delivery to be clean bowled for 37 off 44 balls.
WATCH Babar Azam dismissed by Adam Zampa for 37 HERE…
Aust v Pakistan ODI, MCG
Cummins calls on Adam Zampa … 4th ball Adam delivers the big wicket of Babar Azam
What a gun !
Let’s goooooo Australia !!
Pak 3/63…17 overs… pic.twitter.com/VTfgkWXEtj
— Crickettragic (@Crickettrag1965) November 4, 2024
Babar, who has scored 19 hundreds and 32 fifties in his ODI career, has been struggling for form off-late – especially in Test cricket. His last ODI match was almost a year back, during the 2023 ODI World Cup – against England at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata where he scored 38. In the ODI World Cup last year, Babar had scored fifties against arch-rivals India, Afghanistan, South Africa and New Zealand.
Pakistan, meanwhile, struggled throughout their batting innings with skipper Rizwan top-scoring with 44 off 71 balls and it took a cameo of 39-ball 40 by pace bowler Naseem Shah to propel them to 203 in 46.4 overs. For Australia, Starc claimed 3/33 in 10 overs while Pat Cummins and Zampa picked up a couple of wickets each.
In reply, Australia tried to go hard at the total but Pakistan kept on picking up wickets at regular intervals. Although Josh Inglis and Steve Smith smashed 49 and 44 respectively, but Pakistan pacer led by three-wicket burst of Haris Rauf and Shaheen Shah Afridi’s 2/43 kept the visitors in the hunt throughout.