Highlight
For India, Ashwin finished with a 2/8 bowling line.
India defeated Australia by nine wickets in the one-day international series
While playing a warm-up game against Australia, Rohit scored 60 runs.
The final warm-up game for India’s upcoming T20 World Cup saw them beat Australia by nine wickets, putting the finishing touches on their World Cup preparations.
While India improved their T20 World Cup preparations by defeating Australia convincingly by nine wickets in their final warm-up game on Wednesday, the uncertainty surrounding the sixth bowler’s position remained as even Virat Kohli rolled his arm over ahead of the tournament. Indian skipper Rohit Sharma (60 not out off 41 balls) and opening partner KL Rahul (39 not out of 31 balls) were outstanding as India chased down Australia’s 152 in 17.5 overs. At number three in Kohli’s absence, Suryakumar Yadav (38 not out off 27) got valuable middle-order time, which should boost his confidence going forward.
It was Hardik Pandya’s turn to finish the game with the bat (14 not out off 8 balls), who struck a clean shot over the bowler’s head for the winning run! Another positive for India was the return to the form of veteran pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who struggled against England. In their previous exhibition game, India had also defeated England. The team’s batting looks settled, and the five specialist bowlers instill confidence, but the same cannot be said for the additional bowling option, with Hardik Pandya not bringing his all-around skills to the table right now.
“Hardik is making good progress, but he won’t be able to bowl for a while. However, he hasn’t started bowling yet, so when the tournament begins, he’ll be ready “At the toss of the exhibition match against Australia, India’s Rohit Sharma declared.
Team officials are hoping he’ll be ready to bowl when India opens its World Cup campaign against Pakistan this Sunday. It’d be asking too much of Kohli’s abilities to keep things tight with two medium-pace overs from him in a high-pressure situation, but he did. India was outscored by 58 runs in the last five overs and needs to do better.
India’s bowlers did a respectable job after they lost the toss. However, despite Rohit stating that Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Mohammed Shami were rested for this match, the skipper took to the field and bowled two overs, giving up 12 runs in the process. After Aaron Finch elected to bat first, India bowled Australia out for just 11 runs. Ravichandran Ashwin had David Warner trapped in front after a failed reverse sweep attempt. Warner’s barren run continued.
Ashwin got rid of Mitchell Marsh, the birthday boy, with his very next ball after he tried to play for a turn that wasn’t there and ended up edging it to first slip. After Ravindra Jadeja trapped Aaron Finch LBW with a slider off his first ball, Australia still had a lot of work to do to win this game. Steve Smith (57 off 48) and Glenn Maxwell (37 off 28) put on a 61-run stand to try and free themselves from the shackles. While Maxwell made good use of his reverse sweep, Smith rotated his strike to keep himself busy. Smith and Marcus Stoinis (41 not out off 25 balls) put the game away after Maxwell was bowled for a duck by a conventional sweep.
Stoinis blasted a six and an extra boundary off mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, who conceded 23 runs off his two overs before Smith smashed Shardul Thakur for three consecutive fours. Bhuvneshwar recovered from a shaky start against England, and he was a force both early in the game and toward the end. The Indian team, on the other hand, would be miffed at giving up so many runs in the last few overs and aiding Australia’s comeback attempt.
