SYDNEY: Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath produced a devastating spell of fast bowling to destroy Pakistan’s top-order as Australia won Friday’s opening VB series final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground by 18 runs.
The pair captured three wickets each as the world champions defended a modest total of 237 by restricting the tourists to 219 for nine. Pakistan looked to be in with a great chance after bowling the home side out in the 49th over before Lee and McGrath swung the match back Australia’s way.
“We came up a little bit short with our batting but our new ball bowling was outstanding,” Australia captain Ricky Ponting said. “We’re nowhere near our best yet but we still came away with a good win.” Pakistan captain Inzamamul Haq responded: “I thought we bowled very well and 237 was definitely a good total to chase. We wanted to see off the new ball but we lost too many early wickets.”
Lee trapped Salman Butt lbw for a duck on the second ball of the Pakistan innings and also captured the wickets of Yousuf Youhana for two and Inzamam for 51 to finish with three for 23. McGrath took three for 34, taking his career tally past 300 one-day international wickets, as Pakistan stumbled to 27 for four.
Inzamam and Shoaib Malik (66) rebuilt the innings with a fifth-wicket partnership of 91 but Pakistan’s slow start caught up with them as the required run-rate started to climb. Andrew Symonds made a superb 91 to win the Man-of-the-Match award and Damien Martyn scored 53 to help Australia post a modest total after two separate batting collapses.
Australia dropped out-of-form opener Matthew Hayden and promoted Michael Clarke to open with Adam Gilchrist. But Clarke, brilliant in the preliminary series, was trapped lbw by Rana Navedul Hasan for nine, Gilchrist was well caught by Abdul Razzaq at long off for 24 and Ponting was bowled by Rao Iftikhar for 11, leaving Australia in early trouble at 53 for three.
Symonds and Clarke rebuilt with a fourth-wicket partnership of 137 at nearly a run a ball but their dismissals triggered an even bigger collapse as Australia lost their last seven wickets for 47 runs. Martyn, made 53 off 78 balls without hitting a single boundary before he was stumped by Kamran Akmal off Sahid Afridi with the total on 190.