Pakistan captain Shaheen Shah Afridi refused to lose heart after his team was bowled out 41 runs short in the second ODI against Australia at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, saying the hosts will strive to come out on top of the series in the last match today.
In an interview after the 2nd match, Shaheen admitted that Pakistan’s bowlers gave up additional runs towards the end of the innings that cost the team dearly.
He also referred to the early wickets which were lost in the chase as one reason for the defeat.
“We were short 20 or 30 runs in the end. We were losing wickets early in the game which put pressure on us” Shaheen said during the post match presentation.
The skipper pointed out that, the pitch in Lahore was quite different from the surface at Rawalpindi with more assistance for spinners and less for batting in the first innings.
He lauded Australian bowler Nathan Ellis for his disciplined approach and said that his stump-to-stump style brought him success.
Dutifully, Shaheen showed confidence in Pakistan’s prospects of making their comeback and clinching the series. “We’ll attempt to win the game, there’s only one more day, and we will not have much time to look at our sins,” he said.
Shaheen also pointed out that Pakistani bowlers could not maximise the use of reverse swing after the change of ball and emphasised bowling the ball in the right areas on such pitches.
Australia battled back to even the series (1-1) after falling behind in the three-match series earlier. Pakistan was bowled out for 190 in 44 balls with Shadab Khan hitting 71 off 104 balls.
Nathan Ellis led the bowling side for Australia and picked up four wickets for 33 runs with Matthew Short adding three wickets.
Also read: ‘Machines break too, fast bowlers need rest to perform better’: Shaheen Afridi
