Indian Cricket Team has won the first rubber of the India vs Australia T20I series by 9wickets held at the JCA Stadium, Ranchi on October 7. Thanks to the superb batting by skipper Virat Kohli (22*) and Shikhar Dhawan (15*) who together played phenomenally to end the game in India’s favour. With this victory, Team India now lead the series by 1-0 with two more games to be played.
Indian Chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav bagged the Man of the Match Award for his magnificent spell of 4 overs where he conceded 16 runs (without any boundary) and plucked 2 wickets.
Earlier this day, India won the toss and elected to bowl first. The match started with Indian bowlers dominating the first innings and leaving no stones unturned to trick the Aussie batsmen. Bhuvneshwar Kumar picked the first wicket in the first over itself after he removed the stand-in skipper David Warner for 5.
After Warner’s dismissal, Glenn Maxwell came into bat at number three and was expected to balance the Aussi inning along with Aaron Finch. But he was unfortunate enough to be removed by Yuzvendra Chahal for the 4th time in the India vs Australia bilateral series. Maxwell returned to the pavilion after he scored just 17 runs from 16 balls.
No batsman other than Aaron Finch scored even more than 17 runs. Finch continued his good form in the T20I series opener as well. He ended up scoring 42 runs off 30 balls including 1 six and 4 fours.
After adding a few runs Finch was also dismissed by chinaman Kuldeep Yadav in the ninth over. Australia’s middle-order drastically failed as Travis Head (9), Moises Henriques (8), Daniel Christian (9), Tim Paine (17) failed to rise to the occasion and were dismissed cheaply.
Not much going Australia’s way at the moment. AUS 8-118, 8 balls remaining. #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/LqjGKDqKZs
— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) October 7, 2017
In the last five overs, the lower order — Nathan Coulter-Nile (1), Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa — tried to pace up the innings but Indian pacers Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar controlled the proceedings.
However, after 18.4 overs, heavy rain played the spoilsport and game was stopped and Aussies were at 118/8. Later when the rain stopped, India had a revised score of 48 runs which were needed to be chased in 6 overs.
UPDATE: As per DLS method, India need 48 runs in 6 overs to win the first T20I #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/NhQTVvAwW6
— BCCI (@BCCI) October 7, 2017
To chase down the target of 48 runs, the Indian opening pair of Rohit Sharma along with Shikhar Dhawan, who returned to the squad after missing the ODI series, came to the field. Rohit started the Indian inning with a four and then hit a six in the next over. But his dangerous looking batting came to an end as Nathan Coulter-Nile bowled him out after he had scored 11 runs.
Ah yep, that’s definitely out. India 1-16 after two overs. Couple of run-out opportunities go begging for Aus that over. #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/aCWKhYdriV
— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) October 7, 2017
Skipper Virat Kohli came into bat at number 3 and batted till the end alongside Shikhar Dhawan. The duo batted superbly to chase down the revised target successfully and took the first game home by 7 9 wickets.
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