On a hot afternoon in Bengaluru, Pakistan captain Babar Azam opted to bowl first hoping to restrict Australians to a respectable score to chase down later.
What transpired, however, would have made Azam rue the decision as David Warner and Mitchell Marsh tore into the Pakistan bowling attack, making full use of the placid batting conditions on offer.
David Warner already had some great memories of the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium before a ball was bowled in the ICC ODI World Cup match against Pakistan on Friday, having captained his former IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad to the title in 2016 at this venue.
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On Friday, though, it was his turn to make fresher memories wearing the Australian jersey as he pummeled the Pakistan attack to all corners of the stadium, making full use of the placid batting conditions that were on offer.
Warner, who was dropped twice, first by Usama Mir when he was on 10 and then by Abdullah Shafique when he was on 105, made the absolute most of the chances to hammer the bowlers to all parts of the ground.
Giving him company at the other end was Mitchell Marsh, who was celebrating his 32nd birthday on Friday and gave himself the best possible birthday present with a century- a chanceless knock that had boundaries to all parts of the ground.
The opening duo of Warner and Marsh laid into the new ball pair of Shaheen Afridi and Hasan Ali, that forced Azam to introduced spin in only the seventh over of the innings. What he thought was a method to slow the pace down only fueled the innings further as the opening duo used the shorter boundaries to good effect and kept the scoreboard motoring on.
Usama Mir, who was brought in for Shadab Khan for this game was brought on in the 11th over of the innings but in his first spell of five overs, he was taken for 50 runs.
Mohammad Nawaz offered control in the middle, but the opening wicket continued to elude Azam and his men. As the ball got older, the wicket offered nothing to the bowlers as Warner and Marsh made merry in the Bengaluru heat.
The Western Australian walked back to the pavilion to rich applause from the packed Chinnaswamy crowd for 121 runs off 108 balls. The duo had put on 259 runs for the first wicket- the highest stand for any wicket at the venue.
Pakistan looked as hapless as they ever had in the tournament and it only took a decision, in the 32nd over of the innings, to bring Afridi back into the attack that helped the Men in Green break the stand as Marsh was caught at short fine-leg by Mir. Afridi went on to add the wicket of Glenn Maxwell next up and Australia went on to lose Steve Smith shortly afterwards.
A score of 400 was on the cards for the Australians, but Pakistan managed to pull things back in the last 10 overs with some smart bowling which was lacking in the first 40 overs. Cross-seamers and variations worked wonders for both Afridi and Haris Rauf – with the dup ending up with 8 wickets between them, even though Rauf ended up conceding 10 runs per over.
Australia eventually made 367 for 9 in their 50 overs. 259 of those runs had come from the opening pair, who had enthralled the packed Chinnaswamy crowd.
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