Michael Clarke en route to his unbeaten 37 in Melbourne on Friday. (Reuters)

Melbourne: Four months after India were crowned world champions, they crashed to a humiliating nine wicket defeat to Australia in a Twenty20 match at the MCG on Friday.

The Indians were bundled out for a paltry 74 in 17.3 overs and the home team rattled up the required runs in just 11.2 overs in what turned out to be a totally lop-sided contest.

A wide from Ishant Sharma brought the winning runs for the hosts who relied on contributions from captain Michael Clarke (37 not out) and Adam Gilchrist (25) to win the one-off game.

The visitors opted to rest the in-form Sachin Tendulkar for the match but the youngsters, many of whom were part of the World Cup winning squad, gave a poor account of themselves against the hosts who managed to record their first Twenty20 win against India.

Only Irfan Pathan (26) managed to reach double figures while the other batsmen hardly troubled the scorer as they found it difficult to come to terms with the conditions.

The Indian slide began from the very first over when the swashbuckling Virender Sehwag (0) was run out and could never really recover from the blow as they kept losing wickets in quick succession.

After failing to bat out the 20 overs, the Indians were never in with a chance against their formidable opponents who rode on a blazing start by Adam Gilchrist and Clarke to overhaul the meagre target without much fuss.

Electing to bat, India were 32 for 5 at one stage. Only three boundaries were recorded in the Indian innings and that tells it own tale.

The Indians just about avoided scoring the lowest score witnessed in a Twenty20 game, marginally ahead of the 73 Kenya scored against New Zealand in the World Cup in South Africa last year.

The young Indian batsmen played amateurish cricket to disappoint over 90,000 fans who had gathered in expectation of a keen contest. Batsmen after batsmen hit uppishly and tried to take on the bowlers leading to their dismissals.

Sehwag (0) was out to a direct hit, Gautam Gambhir (9) and Robin Uthappa (1) tried to hit over the top and succeeded in going only as far as the mid-off while skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (9) and Praveen Kumar (6) picked fielders in the deep to hasten their end.

Dinesh Karthik (8) made room to slash a high full toss from Lee and Rohit Sharma went to pull a delivery hardly short as their rattled timbers made a sorry sight.

The best stand of the innings was of 17 runs between Pathan and Dhoni for the sixth wicket. Pathan’s 26 came off 30 balls.

Australia tried six bowlers and all of them were among wickets with Adam Voges, the slow left-arm bowler playing his second international, once taking two wickets off successive balls.

It was as consummate a display as Australia could have only hoped for before the start of the day’ play as the Indians proved completely unsuited to be in the same park as the Australians.

Winning the toss was just about the only thing India did right in the evening. Along with their performance, the crowd’s hostile reception everytime Harbhajan batted or handled the ball in the field, suggested a testing time ahead for the visitors.

To make it worse, Harbhajan shouldered Pathan from accepting a catch off Gilchrist.

Every stroke of the retiring Gilchrist was greeted with applause from across the stands though it was his partner, and captain in the match, Clarke who produced more big shots.

Clarke twice picked up the slower deliveries from Sreesanth, once square driving him past point and then depositing him into the long-on stands.

Australia lost Gilchrist with 18 remaining for victory after the batsman hit Praveen over fine leg for a six.