5 things we learned from Australia-India T20I series
After the washout at Melbourne a couple of night ago, clear skies welcomed both teams at Sydney and it was Virat Kohli’s men who had the last laugh after chasing down 165 to win the third T20I and thereby levelling the first series of the tour, 1-1.
On a surface that helped the slower bowlers, India had a much clearer game plan which is to make use of the powerplay overs, when the ball is hard and that in the end was the difference between the two sides.
Rohit Sharma and in particular Shikhar Dhawan gave the visitors a rollicking start and it was business as usual for skipper Virat Kohli, who finished the game unbeaten with his first half-century of this tour.
Even though India would feel unlucky that the weather interrupted at the MCG, the series result, however, was a fair result as both sides played some good cricket through the three matches.
Now that the white ball cricket is over for a while, let’s look at the five things that we learned from the shortest format of the game.
#5. No war of words out in the middle
If you have grown up watching cricket in the last decade, you would be expecting a lot of banter and sledging when India take on Australia anywhere in the world. It all started with “Monkeygate” back in 2008 and it has been nothing short of dramatic in all the series that followed.
After what transpired at Newlands in March earlier this year, it is now very certain that the Australians might focus on scoring runs and getting wickets rather than get involved in an ugly war of words out in the middle or off the field.
Once the winning run was scored, there were plenty of laughs between Mitchell Starc and his former RCB captain Virat Kohli and likewise, teams were involved in a lot of casual chat during the presentation. It looks like the same would continue in the 4-match Test series.