Minhas’ five-wicket haul on ODI debut earns Pakistan five-wicket win over Australia

This was supposed to be a banner day for Ollie Peake, surpassing Ricky Ponting as Australia’s youngest batting debutant in an ODI.

Instead, it became a pageant for a Pakistani debutant, the wily left-arm spinner Arafat Minhas, who scooped 5-32 as the under-strength tourists were flummoxed on a Rawalpindi pitch that spun and kept low. No Pakistani had ever taken five-for on ODI debut before.

By the time Peake came to the middle at number seven, most of the damage had already been done: senior men Alex Carey, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne and Cameron Green all fell rapidly to effectively rule out any kind of big total for Australia.

It was the sort of batting disintegration Australia have seen multiple times in south Asia over the years. The absent Travis Head and Steve Smith may well have been able to stem the bleeding a little more effectively.

Matt Short and Matt Renshaw played soundly to retrieve the situation somewhat, but never got completely in control of things against spin bowlers who kept the scoring rate down, while producing the occasional moment of magic in helpful conditions.

“When you’re four down early it makes it really difficult to try and build a big score,” Renshaw said. “We built a couple of really good partnerships, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. I think maybe 250-260 would’ve been really interesting on that wicket.

“We come to the subcontinent as Australians, we know we’re going to get more wickets favouring spin. Subcontinent teams come to Australia, and we’re getting bouncy, fast ones, so it is what it is when we come over here. There are a few balls that went really low, that spun, but that’s just the way cricket is when you come to the subcontinent.

“But we did what we could with what we had and unfortunately, it wasn’t enough today.”

Peake’s first ball in international cricket came from Arafat, and the 19-year-old just managed to get his bat down before it snaked back towards pads and stumps.

There was one streaky boundary as Peake tried to form a partnership with Renshaw, before he leant back to cut a delivery that was perhaps slightly too full for the shot and edged behind to depart for seven.

With left-arm spinner Matt Kuhnemann batting at eight, the Australians had a decidedly long tail, so it should have been up to Carey, Inglis, Labuschagne and Green to do something more substantial.

Instead, they all departed within 34 runs, the last three dematerialising inside six balls from 21-year-old Arafat, to leave the game at the mercy of Pakistan.

Changing his pace and varying the degree of turn expertly, Araf