{"id":246000,"date":"2026-05-30T19:03:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/pakistan-ease-to-victory-in-first-odi-as-arafat-minhas-puts-australia-in-a-spin\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T19:03:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:03:59","slug":"pakistan-ease-to-victory-in-first-odi-as-arafat-minhas-puts-australia-in-a-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/pakistan-ease-to-victory-in-first-odi-as-arafat-minhas-puts-australia-in-a-spin\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan ease to victory in first ODI as Arafat Minhas puts Australia in a spin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pakistan\u2019s debutant Arafat Minhas bagged a stunning five-wicket haul and then smashed the winning runs to secure a comprehensive victory over Australia in the first of three one-day internationals.<\/p>\n

Josh Inglis, handed the white-ball captaincy after Mitch Marsh was ruled out with an ankle injury, saw his side struggle to handle Minhas\u2019 tricky left-arm variation. The 21-year-old spinner plundered five wickets for 32 runs to put the visitors on the back foot in Rawalpindi.<\/p>\n

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Australia\u2019s own young debutant, Oliver Peake, became the tourists\u2019 youngest-ever specialist ODI batter at 19, but could only make seven as his side struggled to post 200 in the opening match of the three-game series.<\/p>\n

Pakistan always looked comfortable overhauling their target thanks mainly to a solid century partnership between Babar Azam (69) and Muhammad Ghazi Ghori (65). Minhas capped a brilliant performance by hitting 18 runs, including a towering six to seal the five-wicket victory with 45 balls remaining.<\/p>\n

The home captain, Shaheen Shah Afridi, read the sweltering conditions perfectly and after he won the toss, Minhas cleaned out the Australia top order with support from Abrar Ahmed (2-44) and Salman Ali Agha (1-21).<\/p>\n

Minhas took three wickets in six balls, trapping Inglis for 13 and Marnus Labuschagne for 0. The spinner then hit the top of Cameron Green\u2019s off-stump with a magical delivery that spun away from the right-hander for another duck.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Matt Renshaw top-scored for Australia with 61.<\/span> Photograph: Aamir Qureshi\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Australia slipped to 68-4 in the 16th over, but Matt Renshaw\u2019s knock of 61, and an opening 55 from Matt Short helped the visitors set a respectable target. They would have their work cut out without first-choice bowlers Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc absent, and Adam Zampa ruled out late due to neck spasms.<\/p>\n

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Babar, recalled after missing the Bangladesh series in March, was dropped by Matthew Kuhnemann just after he completed his 38th ODI half-century. Nathan Ellis clean-bowled Babar and trapped Ghori lbw but by then, Pakistan were already on the verge of victory.<\/p>\n

Spinners Kuhnemann (1-29) and Tanveer Sangha (1-31) bowled steadily for 20 overs between them but did not seriously stall the Pakistan chase. The series continues with two matches in Lahore on Tuesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan\u2019s debutant Arafat Minhas bagged a stunning five-wicket haul and then smashed the winning runs to secure a comprehensive victory over Australia in the first of three one-day internationals. Josh Inglis, handed the white-ball captaincy after Mitch Marsh was ruled out with an ankle injury, saw his side struggle to handle Minhas\u2019 tricky left-arm variation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6803],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-246000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}