Pakistan's interim white-ball coach, Jason Gillespie, has said he was surprised to see hosts Australia not promoting the recently concluded three-match ODI series.
Pakistan recently won an ODI series in Australia by a margin of 2-1, their second-ever bilateral series victory in the country. Pacer Haris Rauf was at the forefront of their momentous occasion, finishing with 10 wickets at an average of 12, the most in an ODI series with three or fewer matches. After narrowly losing the first game, Rauf starred with a match-winning 5-29 to bowl out Australia for 163. In the decider, Australia were skittled out for another low score (140) with Rauf again winning the Player of the Match for his 2-24.
Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah, part of the touring pace attack, were no less impressive, finishing with eight wickets at 12.62 and five wickets at 31.60, respectively.
Gillespie, who stood as Pakistan’s interim white-ball coach for the series after the sudden departure of Gary Kirsten, felt Pakistan’s hostile fast bowling "exposed some flaws in the Australian batting" ahead of their 2024-25 Border Gavaskar Trophy against India.
"What we saw in this series is our bowling exposed some flaws in the Australian batting," Gillespie told The Age. "I'm sure the Australians will look to right some wrongs and improve some things. That's what good players and good teams do, you learn and adjust and adapt and be ready for the next challenge."
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He added: "To be honest I pretty much saw no promotion of our one-day series by Cricket Australia, which was a bit of a surprise. It’s pretty obvious that they’re prioritising the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series against India, because I saw no promotion of this series."
Gillespie: The ODI series wasn’t the highest of priorities for Australia
Gillespie also said he was aware of Pakistan going in the final ODI at Perth with a strong chance of winning as Australia decided to rest several key members, including captain Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, all of whom are certainties for the Test series.
"We knew that there was probably going to be some change, knowing what Australia have coming up. You always thought at the back of your mind were they going to send the big quicks over to Perth to play one 50-over game," he stated.
"We anticipated that, and that's the nature of modern cricket and it’s up to selectors, coaches to manage their players as best they can. Australia chose to do that. It was pretty obvious that this three-match one-day series wasn’t the highest of priorities for Australia."
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