Australia will play Pakistan in the fifth cricket match of the T20I tri-series in Zimbabwe on Thursday, July 5, 2018. The match will be played in Harare and will start at 10 AM local, 8:00 AM GMT.

Both Australia and Pakistan have qualified for the final of the tri-nation T20I series, which will be played on Sunday, July 8, 2018, at the same venue. The hosts, Zimbabwe have already been disqualified from the tournament after losing all their three matches so far.

Where to watch:

The match will be telecast live on the PTV Sports channel in Pakistan.

Prime TV will televise the match live in the United Kingdom. For viewers in Australia, Fox Sports channel will cover the series live.

The live stream will be available on the official website and Youtube channel of PTV Sports from 1 PM PST onwards.

Team News

Pakistan would look to take some revenge after they were beaten badly by the Australians in the first round of the series. They did not bat up to their potential and were all-out for just 116 runs. Australia scored the required runs by losing just one wicket. In this match, Pakistan failed with both, the bat and ball.

Their batsmen failed to score enough runs to defend while their bowlers could take just one Australian wicket.

Pakistan has gained some momentum after defeating Zimbabwe, and this might be a great opportunity for them to test the bench strength before running into the Aussie side again in the final on Sunday. But they might actually play the same XI against Australia as the Aussie bowling attack is strong.

ESPNCricinfo quoted Sarfraz Ahmed, the Pakistan captain as saying, " We need to finish games as well but that did not happen despite two batsmen getting into the 40s.

Big game tomorrow as we would try to take the winning momentum into the finals."

Australia is a solid side both on the paper and on the field. It is highly unlikely that the Australian side will make any changes to their playing XI, as their current formation has worked quite well so far in this tri-nation series. Led by Aaron Finch, the Australians will look to keep their unbeaten record in this series intact.

Pitch, Weather report:

The Harare pitch has provided good seam movement for the bowlers with the new ball, and it is expected to stay the same. Runs will be on offer if the batsmen bat sensibly and look to score runs.

The weather in Harare is speculated to be somewhat cloudy with very moderate chances of rain, according to the weather report.

Temperatures will linger around 20°C, presenting a great day to play cricket.

In another international game being played at Kingston, Bangladesh crumbled to a paltry 43 runs in their first innings against West Indies in the first Test.
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