Australia have named a 12-man squad for Friday’s second one-day international in Abu Dhabi, with spinner Xavier Doherty under consideration for a recall.
Michael Clarke’s men scored a four-wicket win with 10 balls to spare in Wednesday morning’s opening clash in Sharjah, without a frontline spinner.
Pacemen James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc claimed eight wickets between them and Clarke is expecting the Abu Dhabi pitch to offer assistance to the quicks and the spinners.
Medium-pace bowling allrounder Dan Christian, who replaced Doherty in the side for game one, is a possible contender to go back out of the side if left-arm spinner Doherty makes a return to the lineup.
Clarke says he wants an improvement from the team’s batting, and has predicted openers David Warner and Matthew Wade could be set for some big scores.
Warner (five) and Wade (10) fell cheaply to slog-sweep shots against the spinners in game one.
Australia’s quicks skittled Pakistan for 198 in game one, with Clarke and George Bailey scoring half-centuries in a total of 6-199.
“They both have the licence to play their way, whatever that entails,” Clarke said of his opening duo.
“They were both pretty disappointed with the way they got out.
“They both like to play across the line and to sweep. But in those conditions they both said it was quite hard because there wasn’t much spin, the ball was skidding on.
“So they thought they could have had better shot selection. But again they’ll learn from that.
“They are two match-winners. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them goes on and makes a big score in this second game.”
Clarke (66 off 96 balls) and Bailey (57 not out off 88) were more cautious and it was an approach that paid off.
“These days in one-day cricket, a lot is spoken about your strike-rate,” Clarke said.
“Playing in conditions like this, you’ve got to forget about your strike-rate and you’ve got to do your best to make sure you have wickets in hand at the end of your innings.
“George summed that up very well the other night. He wasn’t concerned about how many balls he was facing.
“We both spoke about if one of us could be there at the end, we were confident we could win the game.”
The third and final game is in Sharjah on Monday night.
Australia: Michael Clarke (capt), David Warner, Matthew Wade, Mike Hussey, David Hussey, George Bailey, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, James Pattinson, D