Fighting fifty just the start: Maxwell

Glenn Maxwell hopes his fighting half-century in Australia's T20 loss to Pakistan kicks off a strong run of form as he prepares for a big summer across multiple formats.

Maxwell's defiant 52 wasn't enough to prevent Australia falling to an 11-run defeat in Dubai which handed Pakistan an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.

The dynamic allrounder combined with tailender Nathan Coulter-Nile (27) to provide some hope after his side fell to 6-73 chasing a target of 148.

It was a well-timed knock for Maxwell who fell cheaply in the T20 series opener.

Earlier he batted at No.5 for champions Victoria in the domestic one-day competition, but was starved of significant time at the crease after scoring 80 in the opening round.

Maxwell was controversially left out of the Test squad that faced Pakistan in the UAE and was denied the chance to audition in the preceding Australia A tour of India.

The 30-year-old was today picked for next month's home ODI series against South Africa and will be looking to build an irresistible case for Test selection as national selectors ponder how best to repair a depleted batting order.

"It was nice to get some reward for a lot of hard work behind the scenes," Maxwell said.

"I've had probably a bit of a disjointed start to the summer and been thrown around in a few different conditions. Hopefully it's the start of a long run of scores."

Big guns Aaron Finch, Chris Lynn and D'Arcy Short, who fell to a bizarre run out decision from the third umpire which left the tourists in disbelief, again failed to post significant scores after Australia were skittled for 89 in the series-opener.

Maxwell said it had been an imposing task travelling to face world No.1-ranked Pakistan, who have now remarkably won 10 straight T20 series with skipper Sarfraz Ahmed enjoying a perfect run since replacing Shahid Afridi in 2016.

"They are very good players in their own conditions, they've been very well-drilled," he said.

"It's exactly the same as the way we play our T20 cricket back in our summer in our conditions where we're clinical, we know what we have to do in our conditions and it's hard for teams to beat us.

"We've obviously got a bit of work to do winning games over here."

Qantas T20 Tour of the UAE

Australia squad: Aaron Finch (c), Mitch Marsh (vc), Alex Carey (vc), Ashton Agar, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, D'Arcy Short, Peter Siddle, Billy Stanlake, Mitch Starc, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa.

Pakistan squad: Sarfraz Ahmed (c), Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez, Sahibzada Farhan, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Asif Ali, Hussain Talat, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan Shinwari, Hassan Ali, Imad Wasim, Waqas Maqsood, Faheem Ashraf

Oct 22: Australia beat UAE by seven wickets

Oct 24: Pakistan beat Australia by 66 runs

Oct 26: Pakistan beat Australia by 11 runs

Oct 28: Third T20, Dubai

*All matches against Pakistan start at 8pm local time, 3am the following day AEDT