NEWS
Follow UsIndia had Australia surrender in the first innings itself when Rohit Sharma turned up his devastating avatar to plunder 92 runs off just 41 balls - but then Travis Head did what he usually does against India in big matches.
For a moment, it seemed like Australia would walk away with the win, but as Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav raced through their overs, the chances plummeted for the 2021 champions. The duo picked three Aussie wickets, giving away just 53 runs in eight overs combined. Josh Hazlewood claimed that the four overs bowled by the duo turned out to be the eventual differentiator.
“I've seen Rohit do that a few times now. Yeah, he's a world-class player, so if you're a bit off your game, that can happen. It just looked like he obviously targeted that short, sorry the boundary with the wind there for a while and then we probably reacted and then he hit a few on the other side as well, so he's a class act and you expect him to do that a couple of times through a tournament,” Josh Hazlewood said in the post-match press conference.
“I thought the wicket was - a pretty good wicket. It was probably a 190-par score and yeah, they got the other side of it and we went underneath, so I thought the chase was well on target for quite a lot of the time there and probably till Kuldeep and Jasprit, their eight overs, probably proved the difference again as they usually do, so but yeah obviously fell apart at the end but the chase was well on target for a long time there.”
Fielding has been a cause of concern for Australia in the ongoing T20 World Cup, and it was pretty evident against India. Hazlewood admitted that it was perhaps not their best performance on the field.
“No, I think it hasn't been good enough probably. I saw another, definitely one drop catch tonight, maybe two, but yeah, I'm not sure what you could put it down to. The guys are always working as hard as ever on the fielding and training, and here might not be as many opportunities to work on it around games in these sorts of tournaments. You're always traveling and playing. So yeah, it hasn't been good enough for the last few games in particular.”
After Afghanistan beat Bangladesh at St Vincent to qualify for the semi-finals, Australia have now been knocked out of the World Cup. South Africa will take on Afghanistan in the first semi-final before England and India will square off against each other in Guyana.
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