The Indian cricket team led by Suryakumar Yadav made a good start to the 5-match T20I series against Australia by winning the first T20 of the series by 2 wickets and the Indian skipper was adjudged as the Player of the Match for his superb innings of 80 runs for which he played 42 deliveries and his innings included 9 fours & 4 sixes.
Batting first, Australia posted a huge total of 208/3 in their stipulated overs with the help of blistering knock of 110 runs (50 balls, 11 fours & 8 sixes). Steve Smith also played a useful knock of 52 runs (41 balls, 8 fours) before getting run out.
In response, India got off to a bad start as Ruturaj Gaikwad got out for a duck and Yashasvi Jaiswal (21 runs) also got dismissed cheaply. However, Ishan Kishan (58 runs, 39 balls, 2 fours & 5 sixes) and Suryakumar Yadav not only controlled the damage but also kept the scoreboard ticking at a brisk pace. Rinku Singh did the needful in the end as he played a quick knock of 22 runs (14 balls, 4 fours) and made his team win the match with just 1 ball remaining in the innings.
After the match, Josh Inglis talked about the bowling of his side and he also praised SKY for batting superbly. He said that it is certainly not good to bowl this many wides (12) but SKY is quite a difficult batter to bowl to and he was putting huge pressure on the bowlers by using the pace and moving around the crease a lot. He added that they will need to fix or clean this up in the next few matches.
Josh Inglis further added that it is really tough to say what went wrong for his side and SKY did what he does the best and his innings was exceptional. Josh also praised Ishan Kishan and said that he made things further difficult for them. According to Josh Inglis, a couple of wickets would have eased things for them and would have increased the pressure on the Indian side but overall it was good cricket.
The second T20I of the series will be played tomorrow at Greenfield International stadium, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.