All eyes on brittle batting in Australia battle

No room for mistakes anymore for Pakistan after India debacle.

KARACHI: Jittery Pakistan batting was not the start Mohammad Hafeez was hoping for in the World Twenty20 opener against India, a seven wicket thrashing has done little for the confidence of his team who hardly have time to recover with Australia lined-up as their opponents tomorrow.

Australia yet to win the world championship in the shortest, action-packed format of the game but are nonetheless a big threat to the rest of the teams playing the main round.

Pakistan takes on George Bailey’s men in Mirpur in a familiar venue for the men in green over the course of the last month or so, despite spending a long time in Dhaka and getting more than a handle of the conditions the batsmen continue their chequered run.

The challenge against Australia is set to be as stiff as the one against India, the team from down under includes some dazzling stroke-players in their line-up led by arguably the most destructive opening partnership of the tournament in David Warner and Aaron Finch. The rest of the batting has great firepower in Shane Watson, Cameron White and Bailey himself.

The bowling resources weakened by the absence of Mitchell Johnson still include quicks like Mitchell Starc, Doug Bollinger and Nathan Coulter-Nile. The all-round skills of James Faulkner and Glenn Maxwell have already made them stars in the Australian circuit.

The one weakness that Australian teams have faced on slow, low wickets is their lack of expertise in combating world class spin bowlers.

When the two teams clashed in the 2012 edition of the WorldT20 the combination of the Colombo track and Pakistan spinners Saeed Ajmal, Raza Hasan, Mohammad Hafeez and Shahid Afridi choked the Aussies in a chase of 150 runs.

Once again Hafeez is banking on the same combination, he has himself Afridi and Akmal at his disposal and the team management is also likely to play Zulfiqar Babar in place of either Bilawal Bhatti or Junaid Khan.

But the batsmen would have to come to the party if Pakistan has to prevail in the crucial tie, a defeat on Sunday is likely to end the 2009 winners’ proud record of entering the last four of all WorldT20 events.

One among Kamran Akmal, Ahmed Shehzad, Hafeez, Umar Akmal, Sohaib Maqsood and Shahid Afridi has to pile on the runs and play a substantial innings.

It’s almost the stage of now or never for Hafeez and company.