Team India won the MasterCard Trophy by beating Australia by 6 wickets in the decider. While batting first, Australia scored 186, thanks to the firework by Cameroon Green and an explosive finish by Tim David.
In reply, India took it till the final over but did enough to win it. Suryakumar Yadav and Virat Kohli were the stars from the bat with Hardik Pandya giving the finishing touch.
Rohit Sharma has continued his streak of not losing a bilateral series with this win.
Australian Innings
India won the toss and invited Australia to bat. India brought back Bhuvi to the squad leaving Rishabh Pant out. Australia brought Jos Inglis back in place of Sean Abbott.
In the very first over the young allrounder, Green started showing his intentions by hitting Bhuvneshwar for six and a four. In the very next over he took on Bumrah. Australia soon were 40 in just three overs.
This made Sharma bring Axar in charge. Just like in the previous matches, Axar Patel again delivered by dismissing the skipper.
Cameroon Green too departed soon but not before scoring a quick 21-balls 52. This was the fastest fifty against team India in t20i.
The middle order of Inglis, Smith and Maxwell were out of the shine and didn’t do anything significant with spin duo Axar and Chahal taking full advantage of the conditions.
However, the new Australian recruit, Tim David (54 off 27) took the charge and sent the Indian pace attack to the cleaners. He smashed the likes of Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar and Patel in death overs barring the last over bowled brilliantly by Patel. Sams gave good support to David scoring crucial 28 runs off 20 balls.
Bhuvi again was ineffective in the death. Surprisingly, Bhuvi too bowled his worst t20i figures giving 50 runs off 4 overs. Axar had the best figures in bowling (4-33-3).
Team India Innings
Team India didn’t start well while chasing 186 and lost both openers within the powerplay. Rahul’s bad patch continued with just 1 run. Last match hero, Sharma too departed soon(17 off 14).
The former Captain Virat Kohli and the man in form Suryakumar Yadav then took the charge of the ship. SKY had started showing his intentions with the very first ball and hit Cummins a boundary. Kohli took the back seat and let SKY bat freely.
Both had a match-winning 104 runs partnership. Yadav scored a quick 69(36). After SKY, departed, Kohli changed his gear and accelerated with 63 off 48 balls.
The last over was quite a thriller. With 12 needed off the last over, Kohli hit the first ball for six. But then he departed leaving the job on Pandya.
When it was 4 runs needed off 2 balls, Pandya edged the outside of the ball which passed through the keeper-slip gate for a 4, ending Australian hopes to win the trophy.
Suryakumar was given “Player of the Match” while Axar was adjudged the “Player of the Series”
Rohit backs Indian bowlers amidst bad form
Since coming back from the injury, Harshal Patel’s returns haven’t been very impressive. In the three matches he played, his figures are 0-49(4 overs), 0-32 and 1-18 (in 2 overs).
On the other side, veteran Bhuvneshwar Kumar is also going through a rough phase. He has leaked a lot of runs in the death. He gave 19 against Pakistan, 14 against Sri Lanka, 16 in the first match against the Aussies and 21 in the last match. This is not a great sign for the seniormost bowler of the team.
Skipper Rohit has backed both of them. For Harshal he believed that it’s not an easy task to regain form coming back from an injury. “It’s important to keep showing that faith and I’m pretty sure he’s also trying to rectify those mistakes. He’s working hard on his bowling,” Rohit quoted.
Rohit backed his senior bowler too that Bhuvi was a quality bowler and he expects him to do better. ” He definitely has it in him, just that for us it’s time for us to show faith in him and keep backing his skillset, what he wants to execute,” Rohit stated further.
Next assignment: South Africa
India will take on the proteas in a three-match t20i series starting on 28th September. It is the last bilateral series India will play before the world cup in Australia.
It is to be noted that Bhuvneshwar and Pandya are rested for the series and they will be in NCA for conditioning.
