On Episode 5 of The Aussie Challenge Podcast with Ayaz Memon, we discuss India’s 6 wicket victory over Australia that helped them win the T20I series, with one match to spare.
Lots of personnel changes in the game with Australian skipper Aaron Finch out due to an injury. The team played Marcus Stoinis, Daniel Sams and Andrew Tye with Josh Hazlewood sitting out and Mitchell Starc returning home for personal reasons. India played Yuzvendra Chahal, Shardul Thakul and Shreyas Iyer in place of Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami and Manish Pandey.
Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bowl first and stand-in Aussie captain Matthew Wade came out to open and made a half century to help the team get to 75/2 in 7.6 overs. He was run out on 58 after which Steve Smith added 46 as the team posted 194/5. Unlike the last game, there wasn't much Chahal magic as he went for 51 runs while T Natarajan continued his dream run- finishing as India’s top bowler with 2 wickets for just 20 runs.
India’s openers made 56 runs and Shikhar Dhawan then made 39 with Virat Kohli before getting out on 52. Sanju Samson made 15 off 10 and Virat made 40 but by the time the skipper got out, India needed 46 runs from 23 balls.
Hardik Pandya however saved the day for India once again, smashing 42 off 22 balls as Iyer too chipped in with his 12 runs off 5 balls and India won the match with 2 balls to spare.
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