Cameron Green blazed 61 from 30 balls, on his first time opening the innings, as Matthew Wade provided the late assault to help Australia beat India by four wickets in the first Twenty20 International and take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali on Tuesday.
The clash between world champions Australia and current number one India produced a high-scoring contest, which the tourists clinched with four balls to spare, which the away team skipper hailed as a ‘good contest’.
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“It was a good contest, wasn’t it? We had some really good partnerships, there were some good contests between the bat and ball," Aaron Finch said at the post-match presentation.
Hardik Pandya’s unbeaten 71 off 30 balls propelled India to 208/6, their highest score against Australia, after being put into bat.
KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav steadied the innings with a 68-run stand after India lost skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli inside five overs. Rahul made 55 as he and Yadav (46) guided India to 86-2 at the halfway stage of their innings. As both fell in quick succession, Hardik produced a scintillating knock that was studded with five sixes and seven fours, to race to a 25-ball fifty and finished with a hat-trick of sixes from the 21-run final over from Green.
In reply, Finch started Australia’s innings by hitting the first ball for a six but could not convert the start but Green opening for the first tim in his career, capitalised on a dropped catch to smash four sixes as Australia reached 109-1 at the 10-over mark. There was a mini collapse Axar Patel removed Green, wh tried a slog-sweep but wascaught by Kohli in the deep. Umesh Yadav, having bled 16 runs in his first over, returned to remove Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell caught behind in the same over.
Wade and Tim David combined to smash 22 runs from the 18th over from Harshal Patel to turn the match on its head.
In fact, India dropped three catches and was left to rue their death-overs bowling.
Finch said that they will continue to go hard irrespective of losing wickets.
“They came hard at us. You expect the run rate to slow down if you lose wickets. The batters tried to change the momentum of the game. That’s what we play for, we still try to instill all the processes leading into the World Cup," Finch said.
India and Australia will play the second T20I in Nagpur on Friday with the series being a tune-up for the World Cup in Australia that starts next month.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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