Kuldeep, Bumrah sparkle as India go 1-0 up
India 49 for 1 (Kohli 22*) beat Australia 118 for 8 (Finch 42, Kuldeep 2-16, Bumrah 2-17) by nine wickets via DLS method
Australia's batsmen had a dire time coping with a slow and low surface at the JSCA International Stadium and never recovered from the early muddle to concede the first T20I by nine wickets to India. Having limped to 118 for 8 on an overcast evening in Ranchi, the rains eventually came down to limit Australia's first innings to 18.4 overs. By the time they subsided, India's chase had been shortened to six overs, and they mowed down the 48-run target with minimal fuss despite the loss of Rohit Sharma.
It was a pitch that had everything a batsman does not desire to see in a T20 international - variable bounce, lack of pace, grip, turn, and early on, movement in the air.
Some of that swing reappeared at the start of India's chase; off the very first ball, Rohit wristily whipped an inswinger from the debutant paceman Jason Behrendorff late through midwicket. He followed it up with a nonchalantly-flicked six over long leg off Nathan Coulter-Nile, but the bowler went through a flick next ball and clattered his stumps. Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan then ran down the remainder of the target with the help of timely boundaries. Adam Zampa bounced back excellently from a first-ball four in the penultimate over to concede just six and leave India with as many to get, but Kohli sealed it off with a lofted four over extra cover off Daniel Christian.
Just how low the surface played was manifested by the fact that six of the eight batsmen Australia lost were bowled; two of them having chopped on. It was far from the picture David Warner, Australia's stand-in captain, had pictured at the toss when he was asked to bat and expressed his inclination to do the same. The miscalculations of length began early enough, Warner himself setting the template when, having flayed two wide deliveries for four, he again swooped his bat down in an angle to a good length ball and chopped on in the first over. Not long after emerged the signs that Australia were in for a long, hard grind as they played out 13 dots in the first five overs.
The effects of those dots were somewhat neutralised by Aaron Finch's counter-charge. The only Australia batsman to display any kind of fluency, Finch built up steam with smart clips, gentle dabs, the occasional chip, and when the bowlers erred in length, brutal cuts and forceful drives.
Hardik Pandya was especially culpable of those errors in length. Hardly finding pace off the surface, he struggled to hit the right length. His first spell was strewn with fuller deliveries and length balls that often came with the added incentive of width. In all, his first two overs contained just three dot balls and four fours.
Even as Finch's second-wicket stand with Glenn Maxwell had swelled to 47, the latter's dismissal reined in Australia's all-too-brief charge. And it arrived in almost antithetical fashion, to the short ball, as Maxwell pulled straight into the hands of short midwicket.
The shorter length would go on to characterise Chahal's spell and was testament to how well he had sussed out the surface. Unlike the pacers, this length worked in the favour of the legspinner, as it gave the ball enough time to grip and prevented the batsmen from getting on top of the bounce.
Kuldeep Yadav, India's opposite-arm wristspinner, made for a study in contrast with his lengths in the first half of his spell. Seven of Kuldeep's first 12 deliveries were full and it meant that Finch settled into the sweep, employing the shot to the first five balls he faced off him. That turned out to be the set-up that would trap Finch as he loaded up for another sweep only for Kuldeep to have fired it too full and too quick, leaving Finch with next to no time to adjust and lose his stumps.
Variable bounce accounted for Moises Henriques and Travis Head. In contrast to Finch, Kuldeep slowed his pace down to Henriques, who telegraphed a charge and swung blindly to be bowled. The rest of the order hardly painted a pretty picture. Australia's slide allowed Pandya to bounce back with a much-improved second spell of 2-0-10-1.
Perhaps the only passage of play that India wouldn't look back too fondly would be the 15th over, sent down by Chahal that saw two shelled catches and a rare stumping chance fluffed by MS Dhoni. That Tim Paine, the batsman to have been reprieved on each of the three occasions, still ended up with an unflattering 17 off 16 summed up the kind of day Australia had had
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