Australia Humiliate Pakistan With A Thumping 3-0 Win, Raise Questions On Their White-Ball Future

Marcus Stoinis bludgeoned 61 not out off 27 balls as Australia swept Pakistan 3-0 in Twenty20 series with a seven-wicket victory in final game on Monday.

hosts h a 29-run win in a rain-shortened seven-overs-a-side match in first T20 in Brisbane, before fast bowler Spencer Johnson n grabbed a career-best 5-26 to propel Australia to a 13-run win.

Stoinis smacked five sixes – three in one over off Shaheen Shah Afridi -- and five fours as Australia raced to 118-3 in 11.2 overs. Fast bowlers Shah Afridi (1-43) and Haris Rauf (0-34) conceded 77 runs off ir combined six overs in a one-sided game.

Earlier, Pakistan lost nine wickets for 56 runs on way to a meagre total of 117 in 18.1 overs despite Babar Azam (41) and Haseebullah Khan (24), one of two changes me from second game, scoring at a brisk pace in powerplay.

“It's been a great week,” Australia captain Josh Inglis said. “We've h a lot of fun as a group. When Stoinis is going like that, he is really hard to stop.” Haseebullah replaced regular white-ball captain Mohamm Rizwan and Salman Ali Agha took over as Pakistan's fourth T20 skipper in 2024. Left-arm fast bowler Jahand Khan was preferred to Naseem Shah.

Leg-spinner am Zampa (2-11) ignited Pakistan's slide when he h Haseebullah caught at short fine leg. He n clean bowled Babar with a sharp googly.

Babar surpassed Virat Kohli's Indian tally of 4,188 runs in T20s and moved up to second place with 4,192 in 126 games. Rohit Sharma les way with 4,231 in 159 matches.

Aaron Hardie (3-21) removed Sydney Usman Khan when he holed out at deep cover for three, while Salman played across line against fast bowler and was out leg before.

Shah Afridi smashed two fours and a six in his quickfire 16 and helped Pakistan cross 100-run mark. Australia's player of series Johnson (2-24) wrapped up innings by clean bowling No. 11 Sufiyan Muqeem.

Australia openers Jake Fraser-McGurk (18) and Matw Short (2) fell inside batting powerplay before Inglis (27) and Stoinis hurried run chase.

Inglis couldn't clear short fine leg as he tried to scoop Abbas Afridi in 10th over before Stoinis hit three sixes and a four in Shah Afridi's one over to complete win.

Pakistan won preceding ODI series 2-1 but its struggle in T20s continued. It was knocked out in group stage of World Cup in June.

“It's obviously a big achievement winning ODI series but we could have done much better in T20s,” Salman said. “I think in middle overs, we didn't capitalize on start.”