Australia beat Pakistan by 62 runs in match 18 of the ICC Mens' Cricket World Cup 2023 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday (October 20). Riding on opener David Warner, Mitchell Marsh's hundreds, Australia posted 367/9 after being invited to bat first. In response, Pakistan got off to a good start as well but were eventually bowled out for 305 in 45.3 overs with Adam Zampa picking 4 wickets for 53 runs.
When Australia got off to a dream opening start with Warner and Marsh putting on a record 259-run for the first wicket, it looked like Australia would easily cross 400 runs. However, it was Shaheen Shah Afridi's fifer that brought Pakistan into the match. The left-arm pacer scalped five wickets for 54 runs which included the wicket of Marsh that marked the breaking of the opening stand. Haris Rauf started off by conceding his most expensive over in ODIs, being taken for 24 runs in his opening over. However, even Rauf came back strongly to finish with 3 for 83 in his 8 overs as Australia eventually managed 367/9 in 50 overs.
That score though eventually proved to be enough. Pakistan's openers Abdullah Shafique (64 off 61) and Imam-ul-Haq (70 off 71) did help them off to a great start as the Men in Green put on 134 runs for the opening wicket in 21 overs. However, once they started to lose wickets, they couldn't sustain a partnershipto take the game deeper and into the final overs. Zampa was Australia's wrecker-in-chief but it was Marcus Stoinis who started it for Australia, removing both the Australian openers, finishing with match figures of 2/40 from 5 overs.
Pat Cummins also picked 2 wickets for 62 runs in 7.3 overs while Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc were the other wicket-takers for Australia. Other than the Pakistani openers, Mohammad Rizwan (46 off 40), Saud Shakeel (30 off 31) and Iftikhar Ahmed (26 off 20) made useful contributions it wasn't enough for Pakistan to get over the line as they now succumbed to their second successive defeats.
Both teams now have four points after four matches with two wins and two defeats. However, Australia (-0.193) trump Pakistan (-0.456) on the Net Run rate (NRR) and occupy the fourth place compared to Pakistan who slip to the fifth place.