Cliffhanger

Visakhapatnam, February 24

Fast bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile took three wickets on his return to limited-overs cricket as Australia beat India by three wickets with the final delivery in a low-scoring first T20I.

Needing 14 runs off the final over, bowled by paceman Umesh Yadav, Pat Cummins and Jhye Richardson each hit a boundary before they scampered to complete two runs off the last ball to reach their target of 127 in a nail-biting contest.

Fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah took 3/16, including two wickets in his final two deliveries in the penultimate over, but it proved inadequate.

Coulter-Nile led a strong bowling display by the touring side with 3/26 in his four overs as Australia restricted India to a paltry 126/7 in the first of the two-match series after captain Aaron Finch won the toss and chose to field. Australia also got off to a shaky start and were reduced to 5/2 before Glenn Maxwell and D’Arcy Short combined in a third-wicket stand of 84 to steady the chase. Maxwell hit 56 off 43 balls, his innings studded with six fours and two sixes. Short, who opened the innings for Australia with Marcus Stoinis, was run out for 37. After Maxwell’s dismissal, India fought back spectacularly to reduce Australia to 113/7 from 89/2 before the thrilling last-over finish.

With the 50-overs World Cup coming up in three months’ time in England and Wales, India opted to give KL Rahul an opportunity at the top of the order by resting regular opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan. Rahul hit a 36-ball 50 and combined in a quickfire stand of 55 for the second wicket with Virat Kohli, who made 24.

Adam Zampa got the prized wicket of the Indian captain, who holed out to Coulter-Nile at long on trying to hit the leg-spinner for a six. The 31-year-old dismissed Rahul and Dinesh Karthik in the same over and then added the wicket of Krunal Pandya as India were reduced to 100/6 in the 15th over.

Former captain and wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni laboured to a 29 off 37 balls and failed to boost India’s score despite farming most of the strike in the closing stages of India’s innings. — Reuters

 We want to give Rahul and Rishab more game-time. Rahul played a really good knock and we had a good partnership. Had we gone on, we could have got 150, which would have been a match-winning score on this pitch. But Australia played better cricket  — Virat Kohli