T Natarajan bowled brilliantly on his T20I debut and so did Yuzvendra Chahal, who was a concussion substitute for Ravindra Jadeja, as India started off the three-match T20I series against Australia with a comfortable 11-run win in Canberra on 4 December.
The match wasn’t without controversy as Australia head coach Justin Langer was visibly unhappy and had an animated discussion with match referee David Boon, one assumes with regards to the substitutions protocols. Chahal finished as the player of the match for his efforts with the ball.
This was India’s 8th consecutive win in T20Is.
KL Rahul
Batting first, India needed at least one of their top 3 to fire and with both Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli failing to get going, Rahul held up his end for a while successfully. The vice-captain played a good hand and pounced on every chance to find the fence. He smashed a monster six over midwicket and hit five boundaries during his 40-ball knock which saw him score a very fluent 51.
Ravindra Jadeja
The all-rounder has been in some tremendous form with the bat and once again was crucial to the Indian cause. While the middle order failed to break the shackles, Jadeja exploded in the back end of the innings, much like the third ODI.
He smashed five boundaries and a six and copped a blow to the helmet off Starc in the final over, alongside playing with a hamstring injury to propel India’s total to 161/7. He could not take the field after that and was replaced by Yuzvendra Chahal as a concussion sub.
Yuzvendra Chahal
Left out earlier in the day, Chahal had to spring into action at the innings break as a concussion substitute for Ravindra Jadeja. The right arm spinner’s introduction did not appear to go down too well with Australia head coach Justin Langer, who had a heated discussion presumably about this with match referee David Boon.
Unperturbed, Chahal struck some telling blows – removing Aaron Finch just as he was looking to go through the gears and then the big one of Steve Smith for 12. Australia’s good start had been negated. He then finished off his spell with Matthew Wade’s scalp to put India in the driver’s seat with four overs to go. He finished with the Player of the Match award.
T Natarajan
Much like one has come to be accustomed to, T Natarajan bowled accurately and stuck to executing his plans, helping himself three wickets on debut.
Just as D’Arcy Short threatened to take it away from India, Natarajan had him caught for 34 after he had trapped the big hitting Glenn Maxwell LBW for only 2. The two wickets pegged Australia back just before the death overs began making it tougher for the hosts. Natarajan finished off with an inch perfect yorker to Starc and castled him for 1.
Moises Henriques
The all-rounder caused India all sorts of problems in the middle phase as he kept things very tight and used his variations brilliantly. He picked the big wickets of KL Rahul, Sanju Samson and Hardik Pandya, all of whom could hurt Australia very easily. Henriques and Zampa were the only two Australian bowlers to have an economy below run-a-ball in the Indian innings.
Henriques then added 30 with the bat to keep Australia in the hunt till the 18th over but could not see it out as Deepak Chahar trapped him LBW. He was easily Australia’s best player on the day but it wasn’t enough to give the hosts a winning start to the series.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)