Billy Stanlake's aggressive approach pays dividends against Pakistan

Stanlake won the man of the match award for his matchwinning performance in Australia's first game in the ongoing T20 tri-series in Zimbabwe.

Billy Stanlake (AFP)

Having arrived in Zimbabwe after struggling with injuries and a less than satisfying tour of England, fast bowler Billy Stanlake needed a performance to regain the confidence back. Nothing like a matchwinning performance for your country to do it, as Stanlake ran through the Pakistan batting line up in Australia's first game of the ongoing T20 Internationals triangular in Zimbabwe. 

Stanlake bowled quick and simply demolished the Pakistani top order that included Mohammed Hafeez, Fakhar Zaman, Hussain Talat and Sarfraz Ahmed. Pakistan never recovered from that early burst and they got bowled out for just 116 runs without batting the full quota of 20 overs. Australia later chased down the extremely modest total in just 10.5 overs and won the game by 9 wickets. 

Stanlake, who was awarded the man of the match honours, was then quoted saying at the post-match press conference that, "The boys have been getting into me over the last few days about being a bit more aggressive, So I tried to come out and do that. It’s just nice to get off to a good start and get a couple of early wickets.”

"I went away from (being aggressive) a little bit. I know Justin (Langer) was getting in to me at training the other day to be more aggressive to our boys in the nets. He kept reinforcing that, so I wanted to put an emphasis on that today."

Stanlake understanding that his biggest challenge has been staying fit and do what he did in Harare consistently for his country. He further added, "I think the challenge for me has been to do that game after game, I’m feeling really good at the moment; the body is feeling good and I’ll be getting ready to go for tomorrow."

(Inputs from Cricket.com.au)

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 03 Jul, 2018

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