Who Said What: Twitter reacts to India's first T20I series loss against Australia at home
The Australian captain won the toss for the second time in this series and asked India to bat again. As expected, India had rested Rohit Sharma, and Shikhar Dhawan was back in the squad. It was KL Rahul who brought out a show to start the innings. He got out for a well made 47 runs, including four maximums. India lost Dhawan and Pant in quick succession.
Dhoni joined Virat Kohli at the centre. Both started playing an aggressive brand of cricket from the beginning. The former Indian captain became the first Indian to smash 350 sixes in international cricket. Kohli, on the other side, kept hitting sixes, and at one stage smashed three consecutive sixes off of Coulter-Nile. The Indian captain smashed his 20th fifty in T20 Internationals. Dhoni got out for 40 runs, which included three towering sixes. Virat made an unbeaten 72 at a strike rate of 189.47, including six fabulous sixes. India posted a huge 190/4 in their quota of 20 overs.
Australia lost two wickets very early in the innings just like the first T20I, but this time they were chasing a huge target. Maxwell and Short bailed out them yet again from the poor start. Maxi kept finding sixes in every other over. He continued the good form from the first T20I. D'Arcy Short played a good second fiddle, and got out for 40 runs. Maxwell went on to become the first Australian to register three centuries in T20I. The innings included 8 massive sixes. The sheer brilliance from Maxwell helped Australia win the series 2-0. Indian bowlers and captain Kohli had no answers to Maxwell's blistering knock.
Here is what the captains said after the innings:
Kohli: Pretty short series to summarize the performances. Australia outplayed us in all departments and deserved to win. 190 is a good total on most grounds but if there is so much dew as there was tonight and when you have an innings like what Glenn Maxwell played, nothing much you can do. Every team is looking to take each game like that but it's also important to win matches. We would have liked to get across the line in at least this game but I can't be too hard on the bowlers due to the amount of dew. We wanted to give everyone some game time, we've seen how they react under pressure, there is a series coming up and we'll try more things. The good thing was that the Bangalore wicket was back to normal and you could trust the lengths. I enjoyed myself but it didn't really matter as we lost the game.
Finch: Anytime that you can win any kind of series against India in India is truly special. Glenn Maxwell was truly sensational tonight but I thought Adam Zampa was the difference between the two sides. To go for just 23 runs on that kind of a wicket was really remarkable. We've been on a journey for the last 10-11 months building up to the World Cup and there has been some pain during the journey. We've done well to take the blows but also have made some progress, hoping to peak at the right time for the World Cup.
Maxwell: It feels really good. We haven't had a lot of success here of late. To come over here and perform like we have has started it off well for us on this tour. It helps a big bulk of T20 cricket in the domestic tournament back home. Having confidence in my game also has helped a lot and it feels great to contribute to two special wins. Was a pretty good wicket and we could afford to wait for the loose balls. We knew that it could be easier against the quicks, anything around 12 RPO, we fancied to chase that down. After D'Arcy's dismissal, it was upto me to drive the rest of the innings. Handscomb did a great job in giving me the strike all the time. We had a lot of chaos in the last game but we corrected that tonight.
Aakash Chopra:
Tom Moody:
Bharath Seervi:
Umang Pabari:
Sanjay Manjrekar:
Harsha Bhogle:
Mohandas Menon:
Sampath Badarupalli:
Lawrence Booth:
Ayaz Memon