PERTH: Australia will look to cap a brilliant year with a golden home summer by beating Pakistan in a three-Test series starting in Perth on Thursday as David Warner looks to bow out of the longest format on a triumphant note.

Having won the World Test Championship, reta­ined the Ashes and earned a record-extending sixth World Cup title, Pat Cummins’s side have the chance to celebrate with home fans against a team they have whitewashed in their last five home series.

Australia head coach Andrew McDonald said the hosts would field their strongest side, which means a welcome return for spinner Nathan Lyon, who will chase his 500th Test wicket after injury ruled him out of the last three matches of the Ashes.

“Davey’s playing the first Test match and we’ll go from there,” said coach Andrew McDonald. “Until we have to make that decision it’ll continue to I suppose bubble away and the speculation will be there.”

Warner, however, may be the biggest headline of the series as he looks to defy his detractors with big runs ahead of a planned swan song in the series finale in Sydney.

Warner’s place in Australia’s white ball teams is assured after a prolific World Cup but his spot in the Test squad has been on shaky ground in recent years due to declining output.

His selection for the first Test triggered a scathing column by former team mate Mitchell Johnson, who questioned whether Warner deserved a “hero’s sendoff” in Sydney five years on from ‘Sandpaper-gate’.

One of Australia’s greatest openers, 37-year-old War­ner can put the debate to bed with a big score at Perth Stadium but failure to do so would put pressure on selectors to fast track a successor.

Pakistan arrive with a new skipper in Shan Masood and a familiar backdrop of tumult as they look to win a first ever series in Australia and a first test since 1995.

Shan inherited the captaincy after Babar Azam stepped down as all-formats skipper last month in the wake of their failure to make the World Cup semi-finals.

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Already missing exciting quick Naseem Shah through injury, paceman Haris Rauf enra­ged the Pakistan Cric­ket Board by opting out of the series to focus on playing T20 franchise cricket with the Melbourne Stars.

A knee injury to leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed has depleted the squad further, ruling him out of Perth and putting him in doubt for the rest of the series in Melbo­urne and Sydney.

Anchored by an unbeaten 201 from number three Shan, Pakistan had a solid tour match against an invitational XI in Canberra last week but staff were left fuming over the slow Manuka Oval wicket. The docile conditions are highly unlikely to be repeated in Perth this week.

“They’ve gone through some transition with their coaching staff and management and I think in the last series they played, they played a more up-tempo brand in a bid to put more pressure on the bowling,” McDonald said of Pakistan.

“So I think we will see a little more of that. But like anything, if we execute well with the ball it’s going to be difficult (for them) to be able to maintain that over long periods of time.”

With Babar able to focus purely on his batting and Shan in welcome form, the famously unpredictable South Asians have some hope of producing the 400-run innings generally needed to pull off a win in Australia.

However, without their strongest bowling lineup, taking 20 wickets against a team riding high with confidence after a trophy-laden year may prove beyond them.

Pakistan squad: Shan Masood (captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Shah Afridi

Australia squad: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins (captain), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Scott Boland, Cameron Green, Lance Morris.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2023