India have beaten Australia by 11 runs in the first T20I of the Dettol series to take a 1-0 lead over the Aussies in the series. Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal who came as a concussion-sub in place of Ravindra Jadeja and T Natarajan were the stars with the ball for India, sharing three wickets each.
Natarajan’s wickets proved to be a vital turning point in the game as they came in the form of Glenn Maxwell and D Arcy Short, while Yuzvendra Chahal, the concussion substitute for Ravindra Jadeja, dismissed Aaron Finch, Steve Smith and Matthew Wade. India finished on 161/7 at the end of 20 overs with the help of a half-century from KL Rahul and a cameo by Ravindra Jadeja, who remained unbeaten on 44 off 23 balls which infact proved to be the first turning point of the game.
Jadeja took 23 runs off the 19th over which was bowled by Josh Hazlewood after Hardik Pandya fell to Moises Henriques just for 16. Earlier, Australia had removed Sanju Samson for 23 and Manish Pandey for just 2 in quick successions to dent India’s progress. Mitchell Swepson completed a return catch to dismiss Virat Kohli just for 9 runs of 9 balls.
Shikhar Dhawan was cleaned up by Mitchell Starc to give Australia an early breakthrough though at the end of the game, it doesn’t seemed to have any worth of it. The second T20I will be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Sunday.
