WT20: George Bailey admits defeat to Pak exposes Oz flaws against spin

Colombo: Australian captain George Bailey has conceded his players are still struggling against quality spin bowling attack following their embarrassing defeat to Pakistan in the last match of the Super Eight stage of the Twenty20 World Cup on Monday in Colombo.

“Call it embarrassing if you want. That`s the nature of the game, I think,” a leading Australian daily quoted Bailey, as saying. “I don`t think it`s any great secret that we have some deficiencies at times against spin, and that showed tonight,” he added. “Pakistan played a tactically very astute game. To bowl spin until the 18th over, I don`t know if that`s happened before in a Twenty20 game. I certainly think we`ve worked on it and I think we`ve got some very good players of spin as well,” he said. Bailey further added: “We`ve managed to beat Pakistan in Dubai recently so we can overcome it but it was probably our shortcoming tonight.” Rookie left arm Raza Hasan clinched 2-14, and defeated Shane Watson before he was set for the first time in the tournament. Saeed Ajmal, who has troubled the Australians at almost every turn in recent encounters, grabbed 3-17 in four overs, and their startling economy rates indicated the throttlehold taken on the Australian innings from the start, with both openers gone after five overs. Pakistan will meet hosts Sri Lanka in the first semi-final in Colombo on Thursday while Australia, who went through on run rate despite losing to Pakistan, will play the West Indies on Friday ANI