Pakistan opt to bowl vs Australia
Pakistan captain Fatima Sana, in search of her team’s first points at this World Cup, asked Australia to bat in scorching but dry and bug-free conditions in the Women’s World Cup in Colombo. Sana hoped to take advantage of any early assistance for her spinners despite temperatures of 31 degrees and humidity of 70%, which makes it feel much hotter. Australia captain Alyssa Healy was happy for her bowlers to do their work under lights and said they would have batted first anyway.They go into the game both confident – they’ve beaten Pakistan in all 16 of their previous meetings – and well-rested. Australia last played on October 1, when they beat New Zealand, but a washout against Sri Lanka means they have not had any game time since. Australia made two changes to the XI that beat New Zealand eight days ago. They brought back swing bowler Megan Schutt, whose absence from their first match was a major talking point, for Darcie Brown and left out Sophia Molineux for Georgia Wareham.
Pakistan sit at the bottom of the points’ table and their batting, in particular, needs work. They stuck to the same opening combination of Muneeba Ali and Omaima Sohail but left out allrounder Aliya Riaz for the big-hitting power of Eyman Fatima at No.4. Their attack of two seamers, in Sana and Diana Iqbal, and three spinners means they only have five bowling options but with conditions drier than they were a few days ago, Sana was hopeful they could limit Australia upfront.
Australia are on a winning streak of 10 matches in ODI World Cups and will play their first game in Colombo.
Australia: 1 Alyssa Healy (capt & wk), 2 Phoebe Litchfield, 3 Ellyse Perry, 4 Beth Mooney, 5 Annabel Sutherland, 6 Ashleigh Gardner, 7 Tahlia McGrath, 8 Georgia Wareham, 9 Alana King, 10 Kim Garth, 11 Megan Schutt
Pakistan: 1 Muneeba Ali, 2 Omaima Sohail, 3 Sidra Amin, 4 Eyman Fatima 5 Natalia Pervaiz, 6 Fatima Sana (capt), 7 Rameen Shamim, 8 Diana Baig, 9 Sidra Nawaz (wk), 10 Nashra Sandhu, 11 Sadia Iqbal
