Rauf rues ‘untidy mistakes’ as MCG ghosts continue to haunt Pakistan

In the ultimate analysis of Australia’s total domination of Pakistan at home, Monday’s opening ODI will be a mere footnote, an extension of a seemingly unchangeable trend. Australia have now won 27 of the last 28 completed games across formats against Pakistan at home, the latest a victory at the MCG with 99 balls to spare.

That would, however, do a major disservice to a Pakistan fightback that was as sudden as it was unexpected. With Australia on top throughout the game, and having raced to 139 for 3 in the 20th over in pursuit of a below-par 204, this looked about as routine an ODI win as it could get. But Shaheen Shah Afridi had Josh Inglis hole out in the deep to bring a new man in, and Haris Rauf bowled the next over – the fifth of his spell.

Rauf still had the pace to draw extra bounce on a surface that stayed true throughout, with Marnus Labuschagne’s leading edge carrying all the way to third man. The following delivery drew Glenn Maxwell into a tentative prod first up, the ball kissing the edge on its speedy journey through to Mohammad Rizwan. Australia had lost three wickets for no runs, in five balls, and Pakistan were back and looking favourites in a country where they’ve had minimum success.

“We were all trying our best, whether in the field or with the ball,” Rauf said after the game. “We had a plan to bowl short from my end. We had success; we took a few wickets this way.”

In the end, Australia’s stranglehold over Pakistan proved hard to shake off. The visitors did take another couple of wickets and expose the tail, but Pat Cummins – as he has done so often in the past – held his nerve and ensured he was there to hit the winning runs and seal a two-wicket win.

Rauf rued some of Pakistan’s sloppiness. They gave away 21 extras; Australia had conceded just four. Rauf himself sent a wide so far down leg and at such high pace it raced away four an extra four, while Naseem Shah bowled another five. Mohammad Hasnain, meanwhile, sent two wides well over the batter’s head in the same over he took Australia’s seventh wicket, and the pressure immediately shifted back onto the visitors.

“We did give away extras but when you attack, you have to accept that these things happen,” Rauf said. “We did make mistakes, and we were a bit untidy. We know these little things make an impact. If you’re a good bowling unit, then you can cover the batters falling 20-30 runs short if you tighten up in the field as well. We could have defended this and we all tried really hard. The game didn’t go our way, but we gave no quarter in terms of our energy and our effort.”

Falling agonisingly short at the MCG has been a Pakistan theme of late. It was Rauf’s penultimate over to Virat Kohli in the T20 World Cup 2022 that turned the tide of a contest Pakistan had dominated up to then, with India sneaking a last-ball win. Three weeks later, an injury to Shaheen saw Pakistan’s momentum slip away in a nail-biting T20 World Cup final.

“We have memories on this ground which we remember. We lost a couple of very close matches here against India and the World Cup final,” Rauf said. “We’ve made mistakes in the past, but we try to stay in the present moment. The future isn’t in our control either, and we are enjoying the present. Sometimes the result doesn’t go your way, and you have to accept that. And you then try and learn from those failures.”