Key events
WICKET! Litchfield c&b Fatima 10 (Australia 30-2)
Now it’s Litchfield who gets frustrated and slashes across the line. The ball is straight up in the air and Fatima is strong underneath it to hold the catch.
7th over: Australia 30-0 (Perry 0, Litchfield 10)
Sadia continues her spell and the batters start rotating the strike more freely after being cramped up in the previous over. Sadia bowls some very good length balls, but then loses her length and offers up a low full toss that Healy gleefully drives past deep cover for four. But the next ball she loses her wicket and the Australians are one down.
WICKET! Healy c Diana b Sadia 20 (Australia 30-1)
Healy gets impatient and loses her form with a flick to midwicket that’s easily caught by Diana. Healy shakes her head as she walks off, disappointed with her mistake.
6th over: Australia 24-0 (Healy 15, Litchfield 9)
A big appeal on the first bowl of Fatima’s over for a stumping on Litchfield. The umpire shakes her head and Pakistan make a polite enquiry about whether she wants to check with the third umpire, but she declines. The replay shows Litchfield was well in her crease. It’s very good bowling from Fatima, who is hitting a line and length that Litchfield is finding uncomfortable. A maiden from her – the first of the match.
5th over: Australia 24-0 (Healy 15, Litchfield 9)
Sadia Iqbal bowls her first over – a very early bowling change from Pakistan, perhaps looking to keep Australia on their toes, or keeping their bowlers fresh in this heat with shorter spells. It almost pays off, when Sadia catches the edge of Healy’s bat, but it sails just wide of the slips for four. Late in the over, Litchfield gives us the first reverse sweep of the match – it’s just a single, but it’s a bit of a warning to the Pakistani bowlers about what she can do.
4th over: Australia 17-0 (Healy 10, Litchfield 7)
Another over from Fatima and Litchfield again starts it watchfully. She turns the strike over on the next ball and then there’s a big appeal for LBW on Healy, but the umpire isn’t interested and Pakistan decide not to review. It turns out to be a good decision, as the ball tracking technology shows the ball would have missed the stumps. A good over from Pakistan, just one run from it.
3rd over: Australia 16-0 (Healy 10, Litchfield 6)
Diana continues her spell and Healy starts the over defensively once again. It looks like Australia’s game plan is to take a few overs to work their way in, take their opportunities when they arise and build a good platform to launch from. Both Healy and Litchfield are playing good shots, but they aren’t launching anything out of the ground as yet. When the ball is on their pads, both are enjoying that length and scoring quite freely.
2nd over: Australia 10-0 (Healy 5, Litchfield 5)
Captain Fatima Sana Khan opens the bowling from the other end, with Healy on strike to start the over. Healy flicks the first ball off her pads down towards fine leg for a single. Litchfield turns the strike over immediately – both players are looking comfortable, but are paying respect to the bowling. They run a rare three midway through the over when Healy sends a delivery out to the longest part of the boundary.
1st over: Australia 5-0 (Healy 1, Litchfield 4)
I’m so pleased to see Colombo in the sunshine – it looks like a cracking day for cricket out there. Diana is bowling the first over for Pakistan and she starts with a good line and length and Healy is forced to defend the first couple of balls, before a wider one down the leg side appeals to Healy and she flicks it to deep backward square for a single, to give Litchfield her first look at Diana’s bowling. She also plays defensively for the first two balls she faces, then gets her footwork going and drives the last ball of the over to the boundary for four.
The teams are on the field for the anthems now, not too long to go until the first ball is bowled.
Just two changes to Australia’s team from their first match. Georgia Wareham comes in for Sophie Molineux, which captain Alyssa Healy notes is partly due to Molineux being managed in her return from injury. Megan Schutt coming for Darcie Brown was a change many predicted, after Brown struggled against New Zealand.
Pakistan have made just one change from their match against India, with Eyman Fatima coming in for Aliya Riaz. Fatima Sana Khan said that was just about trying to get the best match ups against their opponent.
Pakistan XI
1. Muneeba Ali
2. Sidra Amin
3. Natalia Parvaiz
4. Sadaf Shamas
5. Eyman Fatima
6. Sidra Nawaz (wk)
7. Fatima Sana Khan (c)
8. Rameen Shamim
9. Sadia Iqbal
10. Nashra Sundhu
11. Diana Baig
Australia XI
1. Alyssa Healy (c, wk)
2. Phoebe Litchfield
3. Ellyse Perry
4. Beth Mooney
5. Annabel Sutherland
6. Ash Gardner
7. Tahlia McGrath
8. Georgia Wareham
9. Alana King
10. Kim Garth
11. Megan Schutt
Pakistan win the toss and choose to bowl
Pakistan captain Fatima Sana Khan believes the conditions are right for bowling today. After their batting performances in the past two games, it makes sense they would want to start with their strength as well.
Ooh an email! This one comes from friend of the OBO Maddy.
Hey Megan,
Cool to see there’s an email for you!
What’s the weather looking like today?
Because of course… multitasking netball & cricket tonight. Why are they always on at the same time?!
Very good questions Maddy! The weather forecast is looking great – sunny skies and a dry outfield, which is very good news indeed. As for the cricket and netball scheduling, I am as baffled and annoyed as you are! My attention is all on the cricket, so any netball updates from multiscreeners would be much appreciated.
If you want to know more about Australia’s last match, please enjoy three hours of rain updates and a chronicle of my slow descent into madness.
If you’re looking to learn a bit more about how Pakistan fared in their last match, you can check out this match report – featuring unscheduled insect breaks and pitch fumigation.
Preamble
Megan Maurice
Hello and welcome to Match 9 of the Cricket World Cup! Today we’ve got Australia taking on Pakistan, which should be an interesting match up.
Pakistan are yet to win a game, but they bowled admirably against India. Their batting hasn’t yet really fired at this tournament, which left them with a big defeat to India and unable to match it with Bangladesh. Against a very strong Australian bowling attack, they will need a hugely improved batting performance if they want to be in the game today.
Australia will be feeling a little uncomfortable with we’re they’re sitting on the ladder at the moment, after their match against Sri Lanka on the weekend was washed out. Had they had a good win and boosted their net run rate, they might have been prepared to experiment a little more with their team make up today, but that washout has created a little more pressure for the defending champs and I’d expect to see a pretty similar line up to the one they used in their opening match against New Zealand.
Their is plenty on the line for both teams, so let’s get into it. If you have any thoughts on the match, or just feel like a chat, my email link is at the top of the page, so feel free to drop me a line!
