Report
Heartbreak for Pakistan as pair put on 81 off 40 for the sixth wicket
Australia 177 for 5 (Warner 49, Wade 41*, Stoinis 40*, Shadab 4-26) beat Pakistan 176 for 4 (Rizwan 67, Zaman 55*, Starc 2-38) by five wickets
Second night in a row, second tournament favourites – Pakistan this time – paid the price for conservative batting in the first innings and were consumed by the curse of the defence. They looked in much more control than England did in Abu Dhabi, with Australia needing 62 off the last five with just five wickets in hand. They had two batters, who had barely batted in the tournament, but Matthew Wade and Marcus Stoinis got the better of possibly the best attack of the tournament with clean hitting.
It will be tempting to paint Hasan Ali, whose 18th over went for 15 and who dropped Wade in the 19th before he unfurled a hat-trick of sixes, as the villain, but the match was lost when Pakistan scored just 71 in the first 10 overs on arguably the best batting track Dubai has rolled out all tournament.
They somehow got to 176 thanks to Fakhar Zaman‘s 32-ball 55. Shaheen Afridi and Shadab Khan then kept Pakistan’s noses ahead – Shadab’s 4 for 26 are the best figures in a T20 World Cup semi-final – but Stoinis and Wade had the final say.
Full report to follow
Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
