Pakistan vs Australia 2nd ODI Match Prediction

AUS Team News

Having elected not to call David Warner and Steve Smith up as their year-long bans expire, Australia also replaced Ashton Turner and Pat Cummins from the team which sealed series victory in India last time out. Nathan Coulter-Nile and Shaun Marsh were the two to come into the team. Kane Richardson and Jason Behrendorff were also overlooked for the first match.

Expect plenty of rotation through this series, however, as Australia finalise their World Cup squad. Cummins could return to the pace attack this time out after Jhye Richardson and Coulter-Nile proved expensive.

AUS Key Players

Aaron Finch got back to form last time out with a superb century to lead the Australian chase. Inconsistency has been his problem but he did also hit 93 in the third match against India.

Usman Khawaja has cemented his place at the top of the innings with him, meanwhile. Khawaja hit 50, 38, 104, 91 and 100 in the series against India before his more modest 24 last time out.

Shaun Marsh hit 91* to recapture his best form too, and with Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell further options with the bat there is plenty of strength in depth – which begs the question of where Steve Smith and David Warner will even fit in when they do return.

With the ball, Australia were a little expensive last time out and Pat Cummins could return for this one. He took 14 wickets in the series against India and has 79 ODI wickets from 47 appearances in total.

Adam Zampa led the spin attack, meanwhile, and took 11 against India in five matches. He has 106 wickets in 73 List A innings.

AUS Team Form

Australia’s remarkable turnaround with India and victory against Pakistan in the first game of this series has seen them surge back to form just in time for the World Cup. They won the final three games in the series against India to come from 2-0 down and claim the series 3-2 and then continued where they left off last time out.

In that first game in Sharjah, Aaron Finch (116) and Shaun Marsh (91*) led Australia to an eight-wicket win with an over to spare as they chased 281 to win.