TRUMP AUSSIES
Ranchi, Oct. 7: Spinner Kuldeep Yadav led an inspired bowling effort to help India beat Australia by nine wickets in the rain-shortened first Twenty20 international in Ranchi on Saturday.
Chasing a revised target of 48 runs in six overs, the hosts achieved the win with three balls to spare. Opener Shikhar Dhawan, on 15, and skipper Virat Kohli, on 22, remained unbeaten.
But it was left-arm wrist spinner Yadav who set up India’s 1-0 lead in the threematch series as he returned figures of 2/16 to restrict Australia to 118/8 in 18.4 overs when rain stopped play for about two hours.
Yadav was complemented well by Jasprit Bumrah’s (2/17 in 3 overs) toe-crushing yorkers. Yuzvendra Chahal (1/23 in 4 overs) also played his part to perfection.
Hardik Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar got a wicket apiece.
Australia were off to a flyer with 50 runs coming off 37 balls but Chahal provided the vital breakthroughs, dismissing his bunny Glenn Maxwell for a fourth time in four games. Maxwell, who is often called ‘Big Show’ for promising much and delivering too little, gave a simple catch to Bumrah at short mid-wicket. This was after Kuldeep dismissed Aaron Finch (42) and Moises Henriques (8) off successive overs.
It was Finch’s dismissal that brought about Australia’s downfall.
Finch looked in fine form with four boundaries and one six but against Yadav, he looked determined to play the sweep shot. After playing five sweep shots, Yadav bowled
one fuller that breached his defence. The wicket virtually sent alarm bells ringing in the Australians camp as Yadav and Chahal went through the middle overs restricting their flow of runs before Bumrah’s twin bursts in the 18th over.
Earlier, David Warner made his intent clear with successive boundaries off Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the first over. Warner looked for a third boundary with a similar slash but was played on, done in by the length as Bhuvneshwar had the last laugh. Australia: D. Warner b Kumar 8, A. Finch b Kuldeep Yadav 42, G. Maxwell c Bumrah b Chahal 17, T. Head b Pandya 9, M. Henriques b Kuldeep Yadav 8, Dan Christian runout 9, T. Paine b Bumrah 17, N. Coulter-Nile b Bumrah 1, A. Tye (not out) 0, A. Zampa (not out) 4. Extras: (lb1, w2) 3. Total: (for 8 wkts, in 18.4 overs) 118. FoW: 1-8, 2-55, 3-76, 4-87, 589, 6-111, 7-113, 8-114. Bowling: Kumar 3.4-0-28-1, Bumrah 3-0-17-2 (1w), Pandya 4-0-33-1, Chahal 4-0-23-1 (1w), Kuldeep 4-0-16-2.
India: R. Sharma b CoulterNile 11, S. Dhawan (not out) 15, V. Kohli (not out) 22. Extras: 1 (b0, lb1, w0, nb0, p0). Total 49 (for 1 wkt, 5.3 overs). FoW: 11-1 Bowlers: J. Behrendorff 1-0-50, Nathan Coulter-Nile 2-020-1, Andrew Tye 1-0-10-0, Adam Zampa 1-0-6-0, Daniel Christian 0.3-0-7-0.