ABU DHABI – Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed is confident his team can defendtheir world number one ranking in a stern challenge from Australia in athree-match Twenty20 series starting in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
Sarfraz led Pakistan to a tri-series triumph by beating Australia in thefinal at Harare in July this year and needs to win at least one match toremain at the top of the rankings.
Pakistan will be without senior batsman Shoaib Malik who was with histennis star wife Sania Mirza in India for the birth of their first child.
“Malik will join the team on Wednesday but will not be part of the eleven,so we are ready for Australia who are a very strong Twenty20 side,” saidSarfraz.
Australia, who beat Pakistan in the group match of the tri-series, need towin 3-0 if they want to jump from their current third position to the top.
Since Sarfraz took over captaincy, Pakistan have won 23 of the 27 matchesthey have played — a momentum the skipper wants to maintain.
“We know that Australia have good bowlers like Mitchell Starc, BillyStanlake and hitters in Chris Lynn and D´Arcy Short so we have to be at ourbest to beat them,” said Sarfraz.
Stanlake took 4-8 in a lively spell in Australia´s victory in thetri-series group game.
Australia will also have some fresh players after losing the two-match Testseries 1-0 last week, also played in United Arab Emirates.
Their Twenty20 skipper Aaron Finch said his team was motivated enough towin the series.
“Pakistan played very well against us in July,” said Finch. “We got thebetter off them in the first game but they battled back in the last two.They are world number one at the moment and they are world number one for areason.”
“They played some great cricket in the last two years in this format so Ithink it will be a great contest.”
Finch played down the bounty of getting to the top of the rankings in casethey win all the matches.
“I think any time you play anyone in a different country it´s massivelyimportant and everyone wants to win,” said Finch, who has won eight of the16 matches, losing the other eight since in charge for four years.
“If number one rankings are on the line or anyone down the list, each gameis important. Everyone wants to win. I don´t think they need any motivationthan that and we don´t need it.”
Teams:Pakistan: Sarfraz Ahmed (captain), Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez,Babar Azam, Asif Ali, Hussain Talat, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi,Hassan Ali, Imad Wasim, Faheem Ashraf
Australia (from): Aaron Finch (captain), Mitchell Marsh (vice-capt), AlexCarey, Ashton Agar, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Nathan Lyon, GlennMaxwell, Ben McDermott, D´Arcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc,Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa.
Umpires: Ahsan Raza (PAK) and Shozab Raza (PAK), Tv umpire: Asif Yaqoob(PAK)
Match Referee: Ranjan Madugalle (SRI) – APP/AFP