Australias Summer of International Cricket Begins

If you're into cricket and you're an Aussie then today is a big day as it marks the start of the International Cricket Season here in Australia. We are kicking off with a 3 match series of 50 over cricket against Pakistan which will be played over the next week in some of our best cricket venues : Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

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Australia isn't really at full strength at the moment but still is fielding a good side. The main buzz around the Australian side is surrounding the choices for Opening Batsmen since David Warner has retired. This is probably going to be a theme across the summer because the Test Team is up in the air too. For the opening game though it looks like Matt Short and Jake Fraser McGurk are going to get the first opportunities to impress. The pitches in Australia are fresh and a little greenish so with Pakistan featuring a decent fast bowling attack, it's likely to be tough going early. A good performance today will go a long way for these young bats.

Pakistan are looking pretty unpredictable as usual. I have high hopes that Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan will ensure they are competitive with the bat and with Shaheen Shah Afridi spearheading the bowling they are very capable of being a serious threat on Austalian pitches - especially this early in the season. However, Pakistan often underperform horribly so I'm not making any predictions for this game.

For me it'll be good to see the cricket season properly kick off here in Australia and I plan on sitting back to cast an eye over some of the fringe players. This series is being promoted in the context of preparation for the ICC Champions Trophy Tournament planned for February so with limited opportunities for teams to prepare for that, this series is going to be an interesting one to follow.