Toss Australia opted to bowl v Pakistan
Aaron Finch won the toss and asked Pakistan to bat in the first of three-T20I series in Abu Dhabi. Finch said that he backed his bowlers to keep Pakistan to a score the Australia batsmen were comfortable chasing. Australia went with the same line-up that beat the UAE on Monday, which meant there was no place for Mitchell Marsh in the starting XI, while Mitchell Starc wasn’t fit enough.
Meanwhile, Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed was happy to bat first. Pakistan do not have the services of Shoaib Malik for this game, while Imad Wasim is set to play his first international match this year. Mohammad Hafeez returned to the T20I side after sitting out of the tri-series involving Australia and Zimbabwe in July, with Shaheen Afridi playing his first T20I since the home series against West Indies in April.
Pakistan: 1 Fakhar Zaman, 2 Babar Azam, 3 Hussain Talat, 4 Sarfraz Ahmed (capt, wk), 5 Mohammad Hafeez, 6 Asif Ali, 7 Imad Wasim, 8 Shadab Khan, 9 Faheem Ashraf, 10 Hasan Ali, 11 Shaheen Afridi
Australia: 1 Aaron Finch (capt), 2 D’Arcy Short, 3 Chris Lynn, 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 Ben McDermott, 6 Alex Carey (wk), 7 Ashton Agar, 8 Nathan Coulter-Nile, 9 Andrew Tye, 10 Adam Zampa, 11 Billy Stanlake