INDIA REIGN IN RAIN

Kohli & Co Beat Aus By 9 Wickets Via D|L Method

At 8:20 pm rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, appeared to send the players and umpires scurrying back to the dressing room, Australia heaved a sigh of relief. Their abysmal display with the bat in the first T20I against India was cut short by eight balls with the scoreboard reading 1188 from 18.4 overs.

At 9:35 pm the covers from the square came off as a packed Saturday house at JSCA International Stadium roared in approval. Thirty eight minutes later, the two super soppers having done their bit, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan walked out to the middle with India requiring 48 runs from six overs under the DL method.A cliffhanger? Not quite. India were home by nine wickets a few minutes later.


Sharma (11) was the one to miss out. A boundary and a six later, his middle stump was sent packing by Nathan Coulter-Nile.


Out came Virat Kohli (22*), determined and firing.The cover drives and the pulls which had been eluding his broad blade for some time returned at the opportune moment while Dhawan (15*) hooked and came down the track to the seamers with purpose and poise. Unlike their Australian counterparts, the Delhi duo's calculated aggression never put the team in a tight spot as the Indian skipper reeled off seven runs in Daniel Christian's first over to seal the tie with three balls to spare.


Earlier, having lost the toss and put into bat, Australia once again suffered at the hands of the Indian spinners and Jasprit Bumrah. Bhuvneshwar Kumar dismissed stand-in skipper David Warner (8) in the very first over, while his opening partner Aaron Finch (42) looked comfortable on a slow deck.


Glenn Maxwell's old nemesis ended his struggle. Introduced into the attack in the seventh over, Yuzvendra Chahal (123) dismissed Maxwell for the fourth consecutive time in the series, having tormented the righthander throughout the ODI series. Australia's `Big Show' hit the leggie straight into the hands of Bumrah at short mid-wicket.


Finch, unperturbed by the fall of wickets, dismissed Chahal over the deep-mid wicket boundary for the first six of the match and appeared settled for a long haul.However, Kuldeep Yadav (2 16) decided to gatecrash the opener's party, conjuring one trick after the other. The chinaman accounted for Finch before removing allrounder Moises Henriques as the spinners stifled the Aussies. While Travis Head (9) lost his head and stumps to Pandya, comeback man Tim Paine (17) hung around for a while, living a charmed life with two dropped catches, before Bumrah's late burst erased any hopes of an Australian turnaround.