India made three changes to their playing XI in Hobart on Sunday and the trio of Arshdeep Singh, Washington Sundar and Jitesh Sharma made significant contributions as they pulled off a five-wicket victory to level the T20I series 1-1.
The remaining two matches will be played on Thursday and Saturday.
Arshdeep was Man of the Match for his 3/35, including the key scalps of Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Marcus Stoinis, to restrict Australia to 186/6 despite David’s breezy 74 off 38. Varun Chakravarthy picked up two key wickets and Jasprit Bumrah was also miserly with the ball.
India’s top-order once again failed to capitalise on their starts in their chase of 187 but it was left to Washington and Jitesh who pulled it off superbly with an unbeaten 43-run stand.
Washington, who didn’t get to bowl, made his second-highest T20I score of 49 not out off 23 balls while Jitesh made 22 not out off 13 in his first T20I in over 18 months after replacing Sanju Samson.
Abhishek Sharma gave India a brisk start in the chase, launching a flat six over point off Xavier Bartlett before taking on Sean Abbott with two fours and a six in the second over.
But he couldn’t carry it forward and fell going for a pre-determined shot for 25 off 16 balls. Suryakumar Yadav’s sixes off Ellis and Abbott took India past fifty, but Shubman Gill fell in the sixth over as India closed the Powerplay at 64/2.
Surya’s outing ended on 24 as he chipped a catch to cover to give Marcus Stoinis a wicket. Tilak Varma’s positive start =- including a six off Matthew Short -- and Axar Patel’s boundary off Bartlett lifted India to 105 for 3 after 10 overs. But their quick dismissals led to Washington and Jitesh stitching together a match-winning stand.
Washington later said that the most important aspect is visualization of what he intends to do and then executing the plan to perfection, something that happened on Sunday. “Every practice session that I go to there’s a purpose. I think about what exactly I want to achieve from that session and I try and achieve that...
“I mean the challenges are definitely exciting because there are different questions thrown at you and you just got to find your answers and that’s the beauty of playing at the highest level,” he said.
“I think immediately after this series, in a few days we’ve got a Test (against South Africa). A big series is coming up, so it’s just exciting to be playing different formats in the first place and also to be thinking quite differently in different formats also in different conditions.”
Kuldeep released
Kuldeep Yadav won’t be part of India’s remaining two T20Is as he has been released from the squad, with the team
management prioritising red-ball preparations for the
wrist spinner. He will join the India A team for the second four-day ‘Test’ against South Africa A in Bengaluru from November 6.
