Last Updated on 1 year by Charbel Coorey
Cricket News: Australia possible playing XI for World Cup match vs Pakistan: Will Travis Head play? | Australia’s possible playing XI vs Pakistan
Australia got their 2023 World Cup campaign up and running with a crucial five-wicket victory against Sri Lanka at Lucknow on Monday. In a must-win game, captain Pat Cummins and lead spinner Adam Zampa stood up with the ball, followed by key contributions with the bat from the likes of Josh Inglis, Mitch Marsh and Marnus Labuschagne.
Next up is another crucial match, this time against Pakistan at Bengaluru. The M Chinnaswamy Stadium is traditionally a batting paradise, which comes as a welcome change for the Australian batting lineup who have been put under pressure in their first three games. However, the Pakistani attack is looking to bounce back after their own shaky start, and their batting can fire on such pitches as was the case in their record chase against Sri Lanka earlier in this tournament.
Australia’s Possible Playing XI vs Pakistan: 1. Mitchell Marsh, 2. David Warner, 3. Steve Smith, 4. Marnus Labuschagne, 5. Josh Inglis (wk), 6. Glenn Maxwell, 7. Marcus Stoinis, 8. Mitchell Starc, 9. Pat Cummins (c), 10. Adam Zampa, 11. Josh Hazlewood
Travis Head to meet up with squad, but won’t feature against Pakistan
In good news for Australia, star opener Travis Head has recovered quicker than expected from his fractured hand suffered in the recent tour of South Africa. Head has been batting in the nets and has reportedly left Australia to meet with the squad.
However, given his arrival will be quite close to the match against Pakistan, the Netherlands match the following Monday (23 October) is a much more realistic proposition for a return.
“It’s coming along well, and probably better than we hoped,” Head said to cricket.com.au regarding his injury. “When we decided not to go with surgery, which would have meant a 10-week recovery, we were told it would be minimum six weeks with the splint before we could look at playing again.
“Going by that plan, the Netherlands game will be just under six weeks from impact which is a pretty aggressive date so everything would have to go perfectly from here to make that deadline. But we’ll just see how it progresses over the next few days and I’m excited by the prospect of joining the boys over there later in the week.”
In terms of Australia’s playing XI, they are likely to go in with the same team as the Sri Lanka game provided Adam Zampa is fit. The legspinner has been battling back spasms, and was bowling through some pain during his man-of-the-match performance of 4/47 against the Lions at Lucknow.
High on the agenda will be runs for Steve Smith, who is yet to fire so far in this World Cup. The star batsman has excellent numbers against Pakistan, with 511 runs at an average of 51.10 in 11 ODIs.
