Wade content with telling contribution in Australia's win

Wade content with telling contribution in Australia's win

There were murmurs surrounding Matthew Wade's spot in the Australian setup before the One-Day International series opener against Pakistan in Brisbane. The wicket-keeper, reinstated in the Test side following an overhaul in the aftermath of the series loss to South Africa, had failed to impress with the bat or behind the stumps with the gloves. His last 50-plus score had come in October during the away ODI series in South Africa and his position in the limited-overs team, too, was no longer tenable.

On Friday (January 13), he walked in to bat with Australia struggling at 78 for 5. The situation was tailor-made for Wade to display his trademarked grit. The keeper-batsman's unbeaten century, achieved off the last ball of the innings, propelled the hosts to 268 for 9, paving the way for his side's 92-run victory. Wade put his poor run of form down to not spending enough time at the wicket.

"I feel I've been hitting the ball really well for a period of time now," he said. "I certainly haven't been going out there and just nicking off, I've been getting myself out more times than not. [I've been] working on a few things and it's [about giving yourself] time in the middle, giving yourself a chance and I did that today which was nice.

"I'm happy to contribute with some runs and more importantly to get a win to go 1-0 up. It's very important in a five-match series so nice to be able to contribute. It's funny how cricket works, [the century] coming off the last ball, I don't know how that all winds up but it was good fun," he added.

Wade found an able partner in Glenn Maxwell, whose 60 dominated the duo's 82-run stand for the sixth wicket. Maxwell curbed his natural instinct to attack in the early phase of the partnership before unfurling his full range of shots. Ironically, the two batsmen were involved in a public spat only last month over the batting composition of the Victoria side in a Sheffield Shield game. There was, however, no sour aftertastes of that incident in this partnership.

"Batting with Maxi [Maxwell] is always great, you don't have to do too much," he said. "You can just try to keep it in the gap and get down the other end and watch the show go. That was the plan when I was there with him, we were trying to build a partnership and take it as deep as we could.

"Whenever you bat with Max, the scoreboard is always ticking so it makes it a lot easier on me, I can just get down the other end. He batted really well tonight."