Nawaz five-fer headlines Australia's 3-0 demolition

Pakistan rolled past Australia in the 3rd T20I, beating the visitors by a mammoth 111 runs in Lahore, on Sunday. With this victory, Pakistan secured their second T20I cleansweep against Australia.

The hosts, like in the previous game, outplayed Australia in both departments. After posting 207/6 - their highest total against Australia - they bundled out the visitors for 96, with Mohammad Nawaz picking up his second five-fer in the format.

Electing to bat, Pakistan's innings was led by quickfire half-centuries from Saim Ayub and Babar Azam. Pakistan had lost the wickets of Fakhar Zaman (who had opened in the absence of Sahibzada Farhan) and Salman Agha by the 4th over, before Ayub and Babar took charge. By then, Ayub had already settled in, having cracked three successive boundaries off Coooper Connolly in the third over. However, a few quiet overs followed before he took apart Matthew Short. He hoisted the spinner over long on for a six and then followed it by chopping him for a boundary.

Babar also showed intent early, thumping Adam Zampa for two sixes in the seventh over as Pakistan looked to sustain momentum after the powerplay. Both were largely comfortably turning the strike over through the course of their 69-run partnership, but were also mindful of scoring at least one boundary every over. Ayub departed early in the 12th over miscuing a slogsweep off Matthew Kuhnemann, soon after Pakistan had gone past the 100-run mark.

However, Babar remained a steady force for the rest of the innings, while Khwaja Nayaf and Shadab Khan cut loose. The latter smoked five sixes in his 19-ball stay to help the hosts surge in the death overs. Babar raised his half-century in the last over with a single - going past Virat Kohli's mark of most fifties in the format. However, his tempo slowed down towards the death.

Nonetheless, Faheem Ashraf clubbed a couple of boundaries in the final over to help Pakistan past the 200-run mark.

In response, Australia's batting crumbled against spin yet again. This time, even before the spinners could take charge, Shaheen Afridi pushed them on the backfoot, striking twice in his first two overs. Nawaz was equally troublesome with his left-arm spin from the other end, having Short caught at mid off for 2 in the second over.

Yet again, there was no fluency in Australia's innings, with Cameron Green attempting to wage a lone battle. For a fair bit, he had the company of Marcus Stoinis, with the duo struggling their way through a 44-run stand, which happened to be the biggest of the innings. But by the time he was cleaned up by Nawaz on 20 in the 10th over, the visitors were already reduced to 63 for 5.

Nawaz ran through the tail, with Naseem Shah and Abrar Ahmed chipping in with a wicket apiece as Australia folded out by the 17th over. Only three batters managed to register double digit scores as Australia were handed their biggest ever defeat in T20Is in terms of runs.

Brief scores: Pakistan 207/5 in 20 overs (Saim Ayub 56, Babar Azam 50*; Ben Dwarshuis 2-39) beat Australia 96 in 16.5 overs (Marcus Stoinis 23; Mohammad Nawaz 5-18, Shaheen Afridi 2-16) by 111 runs