Big picture: Who cares wins
Australia have been lambasted in some quarters for supposedly “not caring” about the ODI format following their shock 2-1 loss to Pakistan. They are fielding an equally diminished T20I side with three first-choice T20I bowlers, the permanent T20 captain Mitchell Marsh and their best T20 opener Travis Head unavailable. It gives Pakistan the chance to complete a rare white-ball series double in Australia, with the same set of fast bowlers minus Mohammad Hasnain set to be unleashed on the same fragile batting unit in the three-match series starting Thursday.
But the immediacy of results in T20I cricket are of even less importance to Australia than the ODI series was. This series is part of the early build-up towards the 2026 T20 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics after their experienced group was bounced out of the 2024 T20 World Cup in the Super Eight phase.
Form guide
Australia: LWWWW (Last five completed matches, most recent first)
Pakistan: WWLLL
In the spotlight: Tim David and Babar Azam
Babar Azam is still the No. 4-ranked T20I batter in the world but his strike-rate was a focus of attention in the wake of the World Cup failure. Where he bats in this series remains to be seen but he will be freed up. He looked in good touch in the ODI series but was not under any scoring rate pressure in those games. It will be interesting to see whether he can go up the gears in the T20Is or whether he sticks to his methods.
Team news: Injured quicks return for Australia
Australia will have at least three forced changes from their last T20I in September with Head, Connolly and Cameron Green all unavailable. Glenn Maxwell returns after resting from the T20I portion of the UK tour. Ellis, Bartlett and Johnson are back from injury to join Sean Abbott in the squad. Three of those four will form the pace attack alongside Adam Zampa with some rotation likely to occur across the three games.
Australia (probable): 1 Matt Short, 2 Jake Fraser-McGurk, 3 Josh Inglis (capt/wk), 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 squad: Mohammad Rizwan (capt/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.
Pitch and conditions
There has only been one professional game at the Gabba so far this season and it was a WBBL fixture. It was one of the highest scoring games of the season and both sides expect a good white-ball pitch with more pace and bounce for the fast bowlers. It will be warm and humid though so the ball will likely swing. There is also the small threat of rain and a thunderstorm in the forecast.
Quotes
“T20 cricket is obviously a totally different format, so I guess we’ll take our learnings from the ODI series and the information we gathered on the bowlers and their batters. But it’s a clean slate, new format. We’re really looking forward to it.”
Josh Inglis on bouncing back from the ODI series loss
