India faced Australia in the second warm up match ahead of the T20 World Cup in Dubai, and registered their second win in practice games. India came into this match with a 7-wicket win against England in their earlier practice match. 

Rohit Sharma captained the Men in Blue today and led them to an easy nine-wicket win over Oz. With this, India has played both their practice matches and has comfortably registered a 100% win record in them. 

Australia challenged India with a first innings score of 152/5 in 20 overs, to which India responded with a 153/1, winning by nine wickets with 13 balls left. 

Below are some important points for today’s game against Australia. 

Indian bowlers did a neat job 

India, fielding first, did a good job in restricting Australia to a gettable total. The Indian bowlers were disciplined, and got three wickets in the first two overs. Opening the bowling, Ashwin bagged two wickets in the last two balls of his first over. He ended with numbers 2-08-2. 

Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja and Rahul Chahar bagged one wicket each to restrict Australia to 152/5. 

Australian middle order among the runs 

After having lost a flurry of wickets early on, Australia relied on the middle order to steady their ship. Steve Smith struck a solid half-century, 57 (48), to steer an Aussie comeback. Glenn Maxwell gave him much needed support, scoring 37 (28). The duo took Australia from 11/3 in 3.1 overs to 72/4 in 12 overs. 

Marcus Stoinis (41* off 25) further built a 76-run partnership with Smith for the fifth wicket, before the latter fell in the last over of the innings to Bhuvneshwar Kumar. 

Rohit, Rahul give India a solid start 

KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma got India off to a good start. Rahul, who scored a half century in the first game, made 39 off 31 balls before falling to Ashton Agar. Rohit Sharma made 60 off 41 before retiring back to the pavilion at a good strike rate of 146.34. His innings had five fours and three sixes. The duo put on 68 runs for the opening partnership. 

Surya, Hardik finish it off 

Suryakumar Yadav, who came in at the fall of Rahul’s wicket, made a handy 38* (27) to see India home comfortably. His knock came with five fours and one maximum over the boundary line. His healthy strike rate of 140.74 shows the confidence with which he approached this game. 

Hardik Pandya made 14* (8), striking a six off the last ball of the innings to finish the game for India. Seeing Hardik free his hands is good news for the team and for the Indian fans. 

With this, India will now officially kick-start their T20 World Cup campaign against Pakistan on Sunday, 24th October 2020. Who’s pumped to see the Men in Blue again?