IND vs AUS 5th T20I: On most days, you don’t expect a total of 160 runs to be defended at M. Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore in T20 cricket. It’s a high-scoring ground, however, the wicket behaved differently during the fifth and final T20I match between India against Australia on Sunday.
On a slow track where the ball wasn’t coming nicely onto the bat, the Indian batters did well to reach 160 at the end of 20 overs in the first innings. Australia were in the game till the final over of the match. They needed 17 off the final 2 overs but a brilliant 19th over from Mukesh Sharma meant the game was evenly poised.
10 runs were required off the final over and Arshdeep Singh had already given 37 runs in his first three overs. However, he found his accurate yorkers in the final over and gave away just 3 runs, helping India win the game by 6 runs.
While facing Arshdeep in the final over, Mathew Wade felt frustrated when the first ball of the over was not given a wide. Arshdeep bowled a bouncer outside the off-stump and replayed showed that the ball went over the head.
However, the umpire gave it a legal delivery, which left Wade fuming. You can watch the clip here
Arshdeep bowled a perfect yorker on the next delivery, which also resulted in a dot ball. Two dots in two balls meant the pressure was building. On the third delivery, Wade tried to smack the ball for a six but the man at long-on ended up taking the catch quite comfortably.
India won the game by six runs. Before the start of the final over, Arshdeep had thought he would be the ‘culprit of the game’. But, instead, he ended up becoming the hero.
“I guess for the big part of the game, for almost the first 19 overs, I was thinking that I gave away too many runs and would be the culprit of the game,” Arshdeep said on the official broadcast.
“But god gave me another chance and I believed in myself. Thanks to god that I defended it and thanks to the staff as well who believed in me,” he added.
With that win, India finished the series with a dominant 4-1 victory and will take a lot of positives with them. They are next scheduled to visit South Africa for 3 T20I, 3 ODIs, and 2 Tests.
IND vs AUS 5th T20I Brief Scores
Brief Scores – India – 160/8 (S. Iyer 53, A. Patel 31, B. Dwarshuis 2/30) beat Australia 154/8 (B. McDermott 54, T. Head 28, M. Kumar 3/32) by 6 runs.
Player of the Match – Axar Patel (1/14 & 31 off 21)
Player of the Series – Ravi Bishnoi
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