After the loss in the One Day series, the Indian team came in to the T20 series on high note after defeating the Aussies in the final ODI.
The first T20 between India and Australia was played at Canberra where the final ODI was played. The Australian captain won the toss once again and chose to field. The Indian team had few changes in the side as Manish Pandey and Sanju Samson got their first go in this tour.
A new opening pair was used for the T20I’s. Rahul and Dhawan came out to open Indian innings.The start didn’t go as India wanted as Dhawan was back in the dugout in the third over of the innings. Starc bowled a perfect Yorker to get rid of the Southpaw from Delhi. Kohli joined Rahul at the crease after losing Dhawan. Kohli’s struggle against leg spin continued as he got out to Mitchell Swepson. Sanju Samson was looking good with Rahul for the time he was at the crease. Samson played a decent knock of 23 in just 15 deliveries.
Meanwhile Rahul continued his IPL form in T20’s as he scored yet another half century. Pandey was not getting the timing right while trying to hit the ball. Zampa put end to his misery as he gave a simple catch to the short third man.
Pandya tried to hit a few hits but was only successful in hitting a maximum. Rahul got out in pressure of scoring quick runs. India was struggling as the score was 114 /6 when Jadeja was joined by Sundar at the crease. In the next three overs, Jadeja unleashed his power and got the team over 160.
Before the start of second innings, there was heated discussion between the Australian head coach Justin Langer and the match referee. The topic of discussion was Jadeja being substituted by Chahal under the concussion substitution rule.
The second innings start was not good for the Indian bowlers as they gave 53 runs in first six overs.
Langer’s fear came true as the substitute for Jadeja, Chahal got the team their first breakthrough. Aaron Finch tried to hit the ball but was outclassed by Pandya’s fielding in the deep. Smith too joined his captain as Chahal got him as well in the deep, thanks to Samson’s brilliance at deep mid wicket. There were few instances of poor fielding as the captain dropped a sitter on Chahar’s bowling and Pandey was culprit as well, he dropped Finch’s catch again on Chahar’s bowling. A throw by Pandey from point to the stumps wasn’t backed well by Samson as he let the ball go through him to boundary.
The pick of bowlers was Natarajan as he took 3 wickets om his debut. He got the key wicket of Maxwell as soon as he faced him. He also got wicket of opener D’Arcy Short who was well set at the crease.
Sundar didn’t get any wickets but helped to create pressure with his economical bowling. He gave only 16 runs in his 4 over quota.
The Master stroke of getting in Chahal in place of Jadeja worked well for India as he ended his 4 over quota with 3 wickets and gave only 25 runs. For his extraordinary bowling, Chahal was declared as Man of the Match.
India won the match by 11 runs and take the lead in this 3 match series by 1-0.
