Pakistan face Australian test

Steve Waugh's Australians take on Pakistan in the final of a triangular one-day series at Lord's on Saturday having already killed three birds with one stone.

Step one was to qualify for the final, which will be a carbon copy of the deciding game of the 1999 World Cup.

Step two was to hand England a severe pre-Ashes series bruising on the way.

Step three was to transform the way they played the limited-overs game.

The best side in the world but still looking to improve and innovate, the Australians did that by in effect playing test cricket while bowling, employing strikingly attacking fields, before shifting into one-day machine-gun mode while batting.

It would not have been more obvious if they had changed from whites to coloured clothing between innings.

The fresh approach was best illustrated in the final two games against England when Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee bowled long, unbroken spells to a cordon of four slips and a gully.

England, their side bloated with inexperienced bits-and-pieces players used to being fed easy runs in the middle overs, suddenly found themselves under constant attack in quasi-test matches.

RECORD LOW

The result? A record low 86 all out at Old Trafford and 176 at The Oval.

Australian vice-captain Adam Gilchrist said: "It's been probably pretty obvious from the sidelines, having the attacking fields and bowling a little bit more like test cricket, and that's one modification we've made to our game.

"It's been a positive move. It won't always be that way but the conditions we have been provided with, and the way our bowlers bowl, have allowed Steve to do that.

"And he is very quick to pounce on a situation when the opposition are a bit down."

Waqar Younis's Pakistan, however, will be far less daunted by Australian innovations.

His one-day side is a virtual replica of the Pakistan test team. Like Waugh's side, they can score quickly while they have a useful pace attack backed up by a world-class spinner in Saqlain Mushtaq and two world-class all-rounders in Abdur Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood.

Waqar himself could not be more confident. In his team's penultimate game against England he took seven for 36, the second-best return in one-day international history.

LEADING WICKET-TAKER

In his final round-robin outing against Australia he took six for 59 to inspire his side to a 36-run win in the day-night match at Trent Bridge, confirming Waqar as the tournament's leading wicket-taker by a street.

Australia would prefer to look back to their earlier seven-wicket win over Pakistan in Cardiff.

That day they removed Inzamam-ul-Haq, the core of the Pakistan batting, for a duck while Ricky Ponting picked up the first of his three man-of-the-match awards.

"Punter" made 70 that day, followed by scores of 102, 21 and 70 not out, making him the heaviest scorer in the series.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Adam Gilchrist, meanwhile, continued his return to form on Thursday, following a 44-ball 70 against Pakistan at Trent Bridge with a 90-ball 80 against England.

Australia's pace attack of McGrath, Gillespie and Brett Lee, regarded as the world's fastest bowler, also gives them the edge, particularly following Shoaib Akhtar's early release from the Pakistan squad following a long bout of ill health.

The teams did not meet in the 2000-01 season, either at test or one-day level.

Their last one-day meetings date back to February 2000, when Australia beat Pakistan 2-0 in a triangular best-of-three final.

Ponting was the man of the match in the final game in Sydney. Razzaq, however, was the man of the series.

Mail Cricket Editor