Big picture: who cares wins
Australia have been criticized in some quarters for allegedly “not caring” about the ODI format following their shock 2-1 loss to Pakistan. They are fielding a similarly depleted T20I squad with three first-choice T20I bowlers, permanent T20 captain Mitchell Marsh and their best T20 opener Travis Head unavailable. It gives Pakistan a chance to complete a rare white-ball series double in Australia, with the same group of fast bowlers minus Mohammad Hasnain to be unleashed on the same fragile batting unit in the three-match series that starts on Thursday. .
But the immediacy of results in T20I cricket is even less important to Australia than the ODI series. This series is part of the initial build-up towards the 2026 T20 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics after their experienced group was eliminated from the 2024 T20 World Cup in the Super Eight phase.
forms guide
Australia: LWWWW (Last five matches completed, most recent first)
Pakistan: WWLLL
In the spotlight: Tim David and Babar Azam
Babar Azam He remains the world’s No. 4 T20I batsman but his strike rate was a focus after the World Cup failure. Where he bats in this series remains to be seen, but he will be released. He looked in good touch in the ODI series, but was not under any scoring pressure in those games. It will be interesting to see if he can speed up the T20Is or if he sticks to his methods.
Team news: Injured quicks return to Australia
Australia will have at least three forced changes since their last T20I in September with Head, Connolly and Cameron Green unavailable. Glenn Maxwell returns after resting from the T20I leg of the UK tour. Ellis, Bartlett and Johnson have returned from injury to join Sean Abbott in the team. Three of those four will form the pace attack alongside Adam Zampa and some rotation is likely to occur over the three games.
Australia (probable): 1 Matt Short, 2 Jake Fraser-McGurk, 3 Josh Inglis (captain/week), 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 Tim David, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Aaron Hardie, 8 Nathan Ellis/Sean Abbott, 9 Xavier Bartlett, 10 Spencer Johnson, 11 Adam Zampa
pakistan team: Mohammad Rizwan (captain/wk), Abbas Afridi, Agha Salman, Arafat Minhas, Babar Azam, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah Khan (wk), Irfan Khan, Jahandad Khan, Naseem Shah, Omair Yousuf, Sahibzada Farhan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufiyan Muqeem, Usman Khan.
Field and conditions
So far this season, there has only been one professional match at the Gabba and it was a WBBL match. It was one of the highest scoring games of the season and both sides are hoping for good white ball bowling with more pace and bounce for the fast bowlers. However, it will be hot and humid, so the ball will likely swing. A small threat of rain and thunderstorms is also forecast.
Quotes
“T20 cricket is obviously a totally different format, so I guess we will learn from the ODI series and the information we gather about the players and their batsmen. But it is a new format and from scratch. We are looking forward to it.”
Josh Inglis on recovering from ODI series loss