Pakistan look to carry winning momentum against Australia today

TAUNTON, (England), June 11 (Agencies): Pakistan, after beating England by 14 runs, will look to carry the winning momentum as they take on Australia at Taunton on Wednesday.

Pakistan looked like a team stuck in a different era in their 10-wicket loss to the West Indies but they bounced back in the most unlikely fashion with a clinical 14-run win over hosts and tournament favourites England.

Pakistan couldn't get a chance to keep that momentum going due to their next match against Sri Lanka getting washed out and so Australia will be wary of the danger their next opponents pose. Pakistan, however, will need to show the same intensity they did against England to pull off a win on Wednesday.

Australia's batting unit is purring with Steve Smith scoring consecutive half centuries in their last two matches. The rest of the top order consisting of David Warner, Aaron Finch and Usman Khawaja have all looked in good touch while Alex Carey has upped his game lower down the order.

Australia will hope opener Warner, for all he has already scored two fifties this World Cup, is back to his destructive best at Taunton.

Finch backed Warner, who along with Smith is playing in his first major tournament for Australia since serving a year-long ban for ball-tampering.

Australia's batting prowess was most visible when they fought back from 79/5 to post a total of 288 thanks to Smith's 73 and Nathan Coulter-Nile's rearguard assault which saw him scoring 92 runs.

Against England, Pakistan looked an entirely different team from the one that turned up against the West Indies. There were healthy partnerships all the way down the top six and they were backed up by the bowlers who never let the mighty England batsmen off the hook. This meant that despite Joe Root and Jos Buttler getting hundreds, England fell 14 runs short of the 349-run target that was set for them.

Pakistan have won just one of their last 14 matches against champions Australia, the five-times World Cup winners.

That victory was inspired by Mohammad Hafeez's 72 at Melbourne in January 2017.

Squads: Australia: Aaron Finch (capt), Usman Khawaja, David Warner, Steve Smith, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Kane Richardson, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Lyon, Adam Zampa.

Pakistan: Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez, Sarfaraz Ahmed (capt/wk), Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Amir, Haris Sohail, Babar Azam, Imam-ul Haq, Asif Ali, Imad Wasim, Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain.