Australia seemed set to upstage Babar Azam's sparkling effort with the bat on his captaincy debut, but rains had the final say, as the first T20I ended in a no contest in Sydney.


Put to bat first, the No.1-ranked ICC T20I batsman scored an unbeaten 38-ball 59 in his first match after being appointed as Pakistan’s T20I captain. Babar’s heroic efforts helped his team put a fighting total of 107/5 in a rain-interrupted game that was finally reduced to 15-overs-a-side

A revised target of 119, Australia were cruising at 41/0 in 3.1 overs, with captain Aaron Finch having unleashed a series of boundaries, before inclement weather forced the umpires to put an end to proceedings once and for all.

Both the sides will now face-off in the second contest at the Manuka Oval in Canberra on Tuesday.

Just one over before the match was interrupted due to rain, Finch caused havoc on the field by smacking Mohammad Irfan for 26 runs off the third over of Australian innings.

Here's the video...


According to a report in ESPNCricinfo, Finch has questioned the need for a 20-minute interval during the rain-ruined T20I against Pakistan at the SCG.

"If you're cutting overs off the game and you still have a 20-minute break, it doesn't make much sense to me," Finch said in his post-match TV interview. "When you lose a few overs and then you still have a 20-minute break... I thought that was really interesting. But it's part of the rules and you can't do much about it."