Courtesy of a brilliant last over from Mohammed Shami and an impressive half-century from KL Rahul, India handed Australia a six-run defeat in their first warm-up game of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022, which was played at The Gabba on Monday, 17 October.
Chasing a target of 187 runs set by the Indian team, Australia could only score 180 runs. They had a good start, with both openers Mitchell Marsh and Aaron Finch firing all cylinders. Pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar got the better of Marsh in the sixth over, but Finch continued his onslaught.
However, he lacked support from the other end, as while Steven Smith and Glenn Maxwell combined to score only 34 runs, the likes of Marcus Stoinis, Tim David and Josh Inglis could not register double-digit scores.
Somehow, Australia still managed to take the game deep and needed 11 runs from the last over, but Shami, who has been roped in as Jasprit Bumrah’s replacement, bowled a spectacular last over.
He conceded only four runs and also scalped the wickets of Pat Cummins, Josh Inglis and Kane Richardson.
Strong Batting Performance From India
Earlier, fifties from KL Rahul (57) and Suryakumar Yadav (50) helped India post a challenging 186/. Pushed into batting first, Rahul was the aggressor right from the word go when he got a brace of fours in the first two overs of Kane Richardson and Mitchell Starc, pulling, flicking and swivelling with ease in the rest of his stay at the crease.
He then smacked Pat Cummins for a six and a four inside three balls of his first over, and went on to collect three fours and a six off Marcus Stoinis, who conceded 20 in his first over of the day. Rahul reached his fifty with a wristy flick over the mid-wicket fence off Glenn Maxwell in the final over of power-play.
Rohit Sharma also got a four and a six off Maxwell, but Australia made a comeback as the Indian skipper and Rahul holed out to deep mid-wicket in successive overs. Virat Kohli was delightful in his 13-ball 19 before top-edging a pull to fine leg off Starc. Hardik Pandya couldn't do much, steering a Richardson slower bouncer to short third man.
Suryakumar got going with his trademark inside-out loft over long-off and sliced through backward point fetching him fours off Ashton Agar. He continued to be in his element, like premeditating a sweep and pulling anything short or picking anything quickly which was in his slot.
After reaching his fifty with a loft over extra cover, Suryakumar lobbed the ball straight back to Richardson. Dinesh Karthik supported him well with a cameo of 20 off 14 balls while Ravichandran Ashwin got off the mark with a huge six before falling on the final ball of the innings.
For Australia, fast bowler Kane Richardson was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4/30 in his four overs.
(With inputs from IANS)
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