Team India gave Mohammed Shami-named surprise to Australia as the prevailed in a thriller in their first warm-up match at the Gabba in Brisbane ahead of the T20 World Cup. Shami, who hasn’t played a T20 match for India since the T20 world Cup match against Namibia last year and hasn’t played a competitive game since July was trusted by skipper Rohit Sharma to deliver in the final over, despite not taking part in the whole game.
Pat Cummins accumulated a couple of 2s on the first two deliveries and the equation came down to 7 needed off 4 deliveries. Shami first got Cummins out to a Virat Kohli stunner on the boundary. Ashton Agar in order to get Josh Inglis on the strike, got run out at the non-striker’s end on the next delivery. Shami brought out a cracking yorker to send back Inglis and replicted the same on the final delivery to clean up Kane Richardson as Australia fell short by 6 runs.
Australia were on course of chasing down the score rather comfortably when skipper Aaron Finch and all-rounder Glenn Maxwell were going great guns. Finch was in mood on Monday. He came out with aggressive intent with a new opening partner in Mitchell Marsh and after the latter got out scoring a quickfire 18-ball 35, Finch took the onus on himself to get his side on the course of the chase
Steve Smith got out cheaply but Finch who was doing the heavylifting still managed to share 56-run partnership with him. Maxwell came and scored a 16-ball 23 but needing 42 in 27 balls, Australia would have fancied their chances.
But, for a change India’s bowling at the death stepped up. Arshdeep Singh dismissed Marcus Stoinis and Harshal Patel’s over accounted for Finch and Tim David, who was run out. Harshal clean bowled Finch on 79 in the 19th over and they got just 5 runs off the over before Shami did his magic.
Earlier, Indian openers, KL Rahul in particular, continued with the aggressive mindset of the the Men in Blue with the bat. Rahul smashed a 27-ball 50 and Suryakumar Yadav exuded of class yet again with another classy half-century to help India get to a score The Indian team will next take on New Zealand in the second warm-up game on Wednesday, October 19 at the same venue. New Zealand suffered a 9-wicket hammering against South Africa in their first warm-up fixture.of 186 despite a lower order failure.
