<\/p>\n
Australia named an unchanged XI on Monday for the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as they look to seal the series against Pakistan, who dropped veteran wicketkeeper-batter Sarfaraz Ahmed.<\/p>\n
The hosts crushed Shan Masood\u2019s side by 360 runs<\/a> inside four days at the first Test in Perth, with pace spearheads Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood all coming through unscathed.<\/p>\n It means Scott Boland, who took 6-7 on debut at the MCG against England<\/a> in 2021, misses out.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a huge fan of Scotty, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a secret,\u201d skipper Cummins told reporters on a wet Christmas Day.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s ready to go if anything happens, so I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll play a part at some point.<\/p>\n \u201cThe message (to Boland) is always \u2018we love what you bring, unfortunately, you miss out on this one but don\u2019t change, keep working hard and make sure you stay ready\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Showers and potential thunderstorms are expected for the first day of play but are forecast to clear by Wednesday afternoon and Cummins said he was confident of a result.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there will be plenty of time to finish the game. I don\u2019t think (the weather) will change anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201c(The wicket) looks pretty good. Fair bit of grass, probably a little bit harder and not as green as last year.\u201d<\/p>\n Pakistan have been hit hard by injuries since Perth with fast bowler Khurram Shahzad<\/a> and their two leading spinners, Abrar Ahmed<\/a> and Noman Ali<\/a>, all ruled out of the Melbourne match.<\/p>\n They named a 12-man squad with Sarfaraz Ahmed and speedster Faheem Ashraf axed.<\/p>\n Mohammad Nawaz will take the gloves, with Mir Hamza and Hasan Ali in contention for Shahzad\u2019s place in the attack alongside veteran Shaheen Shah Afridi and impressive newcomer Aamer Jamal.<\/p>\n With Ahmed and Ali sidelined, Sajid Khan is their only spin option.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think Rizwan is ready and we can give Sarfaraz a little bit of a break to recoup and come back,\u201d said Masood.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s more of a tactical decision in terms of the conditions and what we can get out of each player.\u201d<\/p>\n Australia:<\/strong> David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Mitch Marsh, Alex Carey, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins (capt), Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood<\/p>\n Pakistan:<\/strong> Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood (capt), Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan, Agha Salman, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Hasan Ali, Mir Hamza, Aamer Jamal, Sajid Khan<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australia named an unchanged XI on Monday for the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as they look to seal the series against Pakistan, who dropped veteran wicketkeeper-batter Sarfaraz Ahmed. The hosts crushed Shan Masood\u2019s side by 360 runs inside four days at the first Test in Perth, with pace spearheads Pat Cummins, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/12\/25120704aa0c3d1.png?r=120834","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}