Australia face mammoth task in semifinal as favourites Pakistan ride on unbeaten streak at the ICC T20 World Cup

(Cricket news) Australia will face Pakistan in the second semifinal of the ICC T20 World Cup. Both the teams have won their final group matches and will be a must watch competition as they step on the ground tomorrow and will play today’s semifinal winner at the final. England will face New Zealand today as one team will progress to the final which will be played on 14th november.

Pakistan are so far the only team in this edition to have maintained a 100 percent winning record as they have reached the semifinal with 10 points in 5 matches. The openers have flourished this year as they have scored 478 runs in 5 matches, Babar Azam leads the run chart in the tournament with 264 runs including three half centuries in the last three matches and has 4 overall in 5 matches. Mohammad Rizwan has scored 214 runs in 5 matches and is only 34 runs from scoring 1000 runs in T20 internationals this year. Mohammad Hafeez has been struggling to get big numbers, his 2 years junior Shoaib Malik struck the fastest half century by a Pakistan batter in T20 in the previous match.

Their team has the batters who are on top as the bowlers have provided with enough breakthroughs to trouble the opposition. Pacer Haris Rauf has been taking at least a wicket in every match so far and has given away more than 27 runs in only one match which was against Afghanistan. Rauf took a four wicket haul against New Zealand, he has taken a total of 8 wickets as Shaheen Afridi comes in second with 6 wickets while Hasan Ali and spinner Shadab Khan have taken 5 wickets each.

Australia so far has only lost one match in the World Cup so far and were second in Group 1 right next to England. Their batters were sublime in their final group match against West Indies as opener David Warner hit 89 off 56 balls while Mitchell Marsh scored a half century in 32 balls. Before this match they only had one score above 50 when Warner scored 65 against England, Glen Maxwell needs to hit some reverse sweeps against the Pakistani bowling attack and opener Aaron Finch who is also leading the team needs to use his strength to win the match against Pakistan.

Adam Zampa has been leading the bowling attack with 11 wickets in 5 matches, he needs 4 more to break the record of Ajantha Mendis who took 15 in the 2012 edition and five more to break the existing record of Wanindu Hasaranga who is the leading wicket taker this edition with 16 wickets. Josh Hazlewood took four wickets in the match against West Indies as he comes in second with 8 wickets in 5 matches, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins will try to break the Pakistani openers.

Australia has won four matches while chasing and lost the only one where it batted first against England. Zampa will try to recreate what he did against Bangladesh when he took a five wicket haul. Pakistan will try to bat first as the openers can give a good start as they batted first in the last two matches and scored 189 in both of them.

Also read: Shoaib Malik waiting to break more records for Pakistan in T20 matches

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