Marcus Stoinis smashed an unbeaten 61 runs off merely 27 balls as Australia easily overpowered Pakistan by 7 wickets in the third T20 International and completed the series with a score of 3-0 on Monday. As Stoinis reached the run cut off of 118 runs required with five overs remaining at 8.4 overs to spare Bellerive Oval, five sixes and an equal number of fours marked the explosive performance by Stoinis in the background of Australia chasing the target.
In reply, Pakistan started batting and were at a healthy position of 61-1 in the seventh over before wheels came off their innings and they were bundled out for 117 in 18.1 overs. Pakistan launched a knob # Adam Zampa dismissed Haseebullah Khan (24) in the seventh over to begin a mini-collapse to Pakistan who managed to add 56 runs before losing their last eight wickets, and a further five overs.
Zampa also took care of important Babar Azam’s wicket (41) who had tried stepping out against the leg-spinner and would have been stumped had a ball not sneak through his gate and then knocked the stumps.
Pakistan, on the other hand, saw Aaron Hardie take 3-21, while Spencer Johnson caught two wickets while removing Irfan Khan with a run-out via a direct hit from mid-wicket.
Australia commenced confidently losing both of their openers, Matthew Short and Jake Fraser McGurk shorter than 4 overs but in reply to collapse hopes, Stoinis Akash made the response extremely disheartened Pakistan from losing touch.
Stoinis smashed 22 in one over off Haris Rauf hitting two sixes and two fours to essentially end the match.
Player-of-the-match Stoinis was on a roll making a half-century in just 23 balls before hitting a huge six off Shaheen Afridi to reach the 50-run mark.
He equalized the score with another six, this time off Abbas Afridi, but it was Abbas who gave away the winning run when he threw a full toss at chest height.
“It has been wonderful fun all week as a team,” was the response of Josh Inglis who captained a second string Australian team in the absence of T20 skipper Mitchell Marsh among others.
“It’s always nice to win another game today and go three nil up.” Inglis scored 27 and praised Soinis who did really well against the Pakistan bowlers.
“When he is hitting the ball like how he is now it is almost impossible to stop him and that six over the roof was the biggest I’ve ever witnessed.”
Pakistan’s stand-in captain Agha Salman said that they ought to have performed better after having started batting so strongly. “I think in the middle overs, we didn’t make the most of the beginning that we had.”
Winning an ODI series is certainly a big achievement but I think we could have done a lot better in the T20s.” Pakistan won the preceding one-day series 2-1.