Brisbane: Fifties from KL Rahul (57) and Suryakumar Yadav (50) helped India post a challenging 186/7 in their first warm-up match of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup against defending champions Australia at The Gabba on Monday. For Australia, fast bowler Kane Richardson was the pick of the bowlers with 4/30 in his four overs.
Pushed into batting first, Rahul was the aggressor right from the word go when he got a brace of fours in the first two overs of Richardson and Mitchell Starc, pulling, flicking and swivelling with ease in the rest of his stay at the crease.
He then smacked Pat Cummins for a six and a four inside three balls of his first over, and went on to collect three fours and a six off Marcus Stoinis, who conceded 20 in his first over of the day. Rahul reached his fifty with a wristy flick over mid-wicket fence off Glenn Maxwell in the final over of power-play.
Rohit Sharma also got a four and a six off Maxwell, but Australia made a quite comeback as the Indian skipper and Rahul holed out to deep mid-wicket in successive overs. Virat Kohli was delightful in his 13-ball 19 before top-edging a pull to fine leg off Starc. Hardik Pandya couldn’t do much, steering a Richardson slower bouncer to short third man.
Suryakumar got going with his trademark inside-out loft over long-off and sliced through backward point fetching him fours off Ashton Agar. He continued to be in his elements, like premeditating a sweep and pulling anything which was short or picking anything quickly which was in his slot.
After reaching his fifty with a loft over extra cover, Suryakumar lobbed the ball straight back to Richardson. Dinesh Karthik supported him well with a cameo of 20 off 14 balls while Ravichandran Ashwin got off the mark with a huge six before falling on the final ball of the innings.
Brief scores: India 186/7 in 20 overs (KL Rahul 57, Suryakumar Yadav 50; Kane Richardson 4/30) against Australia.
(IANS)
