Hopes pinpoints Afridi threat

Pakistan's Shahid Afridi produced a fine all-round performance in the first ODI against Australia

Pakistan star Shahid Afridi is the man to stop if Australia are to win their five-match one-day series in the UAE, according to all-rounder James Hopes.

Afridi was at his destructive best in the first match, which Pakistan won by four wickets, using his leg-spinners to take six wickets - three of which were bowled - and restrict Australia to just 168 after being 100 for two.

And the 29-year-old returned to the fray later on with the result in the balance to blast 24 runs, including five boundaries, off just 16 balls to ensure Pakistan enjoyed a 1-0 series lead.

But while Hopes conceded how dangerous Afridi was, he said Australia had to do their part to keep him from stamping his authority on the contest.

"We're going to have to bat better against him, we exposed our tail to him and when he gets a sniff in a game of cricket, he's very competitive and he can do what he did last night," he said.

"The trick for us is not to give him that sniff to take over a game.

"Last night it was a 50-50 game, he came in and got 24 off 16 balls and took the game away from us.

"We've got to expect that that's the way he bats, some days he's going to come off."

However, despite producing a paltry total while batting first, Hopes drew positives out of the match, saying: "We came very close to defending 168 last night and I think that says a lot for our bowling attack and how our bowlers can bowl against this team."

Australia lost eight wickets to spin out of a possible nine (with Shaun Marsh being run out), and Hopes thinks it will prove to be a decisive factor in the series.

"We don't come over to Dubai or Sharjah or India or Pakistan or Sri Lanka and think we're going to get pitches like the Gabba and the WACA," he said.

Hopes feels his side will improve as they get used to playing Pakistan's spinners

"We had two spinners bowl very well (against us), one spinner we haven't played in a long time in Afridi and one spinner we haven't played at all (Saeed Ajmal).

"If history shows us anything, I think Australian teams learn the more they play against the spinners.

"Murali's (Muttiah Muralitharan) record against Australia is not that great and that's because guys figured it out after playing him a few times."

Hopes admitted Ajmal caught Australia by surprise purely because they were not able to obtain any vision of him in the lead-up to the series.

"With Pakistan it's very hard (to obtain vision of players) considering they haven't played much cricket, we didn't have much footage on their guys whatsoever," Hopes said.

"When it comes to guys like Ajmal and (batsman Nasir) Jamshed... guys like that are averaging 50 in one-day cricket, we've never seen them face one ball in their life."

Australia have now only won five out of 16 ODIs (one of which was washed out) in 2009 but Hopes denied the frequent changes to the line-up have played a major part in this year's less-than-impressive record.

"I've been with this team full time now for close to two years and even when I first came in (with some of the world's best players still playing) there were guys being rested and we were still winning games of cricket," he said.

"If you give this group now six more months of playing consistent one-day cricket... we're going to be able to rely on the Brad Haddin's to consistently score runs for us."