cricket

Updated: Feb 24, 2019 23:16 IST

Australia absorbed early blows, mid-innings blues and a superb 19th over from Jaspreet Bumrah where he conceded two runs and took two wickets to script a last-ball victory against India in the first T20 International on the last ball here on Sunday.

Umesh Yadav had 14 runs to defend and it was down to six off the last two balls when his wide yorker attempt was smashed by Pat Cummins. He and Jhye Richardson ran two off the last ball to seal the three-wicket win after Glen Maxwell (56) and D’Arcy Short (37) had taken Australia most of the distance with an 84-run stand.

India gave Mayank Markande his debut and made 126/7. By the time Yadav joined MS Dhoni, they had lost three wickets for eight runs and the ease with which KL Rahul and Virat Kohli were scoring seemed like it was from another evening.

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Like Kohli, Rahul fell to a poor shot. As did Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik and Krunal Pandya. Add Rishabh Pant’s run out and the match nearly ended as a contest before the evening did. Dhoni farming the strike and not making much of it barring a last-over swing over mid-off that fetched six merely deepened the gloom at the Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium. The boundary before that was in the 18th over and had taken 51 balls. That it came off byes summed up India’s innings.

If these are the bad habits Kohli had warned against it is just as well that they have come early. More likely, it was an aberration precipitated by Australia’s fast bowlers who looked like they were reared on slow wickets given how they hit the right length. The one who did that best though didn’t get it right in his first over but more than made up for that when he came back in the innings’ 13th. Step forward, Nathan Coulter-Nile.

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Having gone for 11 in his first over, which he began it by straying on leg-side to be flicked for four by Kohli and ending by giving Rahul width on the off-side to be lofted over covers, Coulter-Nile took two wickets in his comeback over.

Rahul went first, being followed while trying to scoop soon after a breezy 50 got by playing on both sides of the wicket and showing that staying away from the team hadn’t blunted his aggressive instincts. Karthik brazenly tried to walk out and had his defence breached. Soon after, desperate to break free, Pandya tried to pull Coulter-Nile from outside off-stump and was caught at backward point.

To his three wickets, Coulter-Nile added the catch of Kohli after Adam Zampa cramped him while he tried to hit the leg-spinner over long-on. Having walked in after Rohit audaciously tried a lap shot that barely cleared the circle, Kolhi mixed soft nudges to third man with down-the-ground shots and those past point. He and Rahul added 55 in 6.1 overs but Zampa surprised him with lack of spin and it went downhill from there.