Aussie clean sweep Pakistan

Australian players pose with the trophy after winning the fifth ODI match against Pakistan

 Dead rubbers, usually, are an opportunity for the victor to test their bench and a chance for the vanquished to play for some pride.
But  the five-match One Day International series between Pakistan and Australia, in many ways, has been the exact opposite of it.
Pakistan  have used this to have a peek into their bench strength, while the Australians have bounced back from a testing and troubled year and gained some much needed pride.
And with this being the World Cup year, dead rubbers have assumed even more importance as teams search for the missing pieces that could perhaps solve the puzzle.
Australia had done and dusted the series well before it could reach its conclusion and they signed off the tour with a 20-run victory in the fifth ODI at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
The  series outcome had been known in Abu Dhabi itself with them making it 3-0 and the Australians swept it 5-0 on Sunday night, before their long-haul flight back home Down Under.
The last time that the Australians had made a clean sweep on an ODI series on the road was in the Caribbean in 2008.
It also made it a sequence of eight wins on the bounce beginning with the huge series victory against India in India. It was a workmanlike performance from the Australians with almost all putting their hands up to counted.
The series also primed the Australians as they set about their World Cup title defence at Old Blighty in two months time.
The
 Australians were up and about with the bat, their new-found confidence clearly showing, as they racked up a mammoth 327, the highest total of the series.
And it revolved around not just the openers Usman Khawaja and captain Aaron Finch, who hasn't put a foot wrong on this tour, but also the other two to follow - Shaun Marsh and Glenn Maxwell.
First up, Khawaja and Finch rocketed Australia with a 124-run alliance with the former again a tad unlucky to miss out on a century. The southpaw, who had made 88 in the second ODI at Sharjah, fell two runs short of a ninth hundred.
Khawaja also added 80 runs for the second wicket with Marsh. Marsh and Maxwell then put together 60 runs for the third wicket.
The end result may have said otherwise but there were plenty of positives Pakistan could take out of it. Quicks Usman Shenwari and Junaid Khan were amongst the wickets after the Australians were told to have first go at the surface.
Shenwari picked four for 49, while Junaid was a tad expensive, his three wickets costing 73 runs from nine overs.
Then, Pakistan made a fist of the chase with Haris Sohail carving out his second hundred of the tour.
The other positives from the tour would be wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan as well as openers Shan Masood and Abid Ali, apart from Haris Sohail.