KL Rahul had a half-century of hard scoring at the top, while in-form Indian T20 hitter Suryakumar Yadav also scored a 50, going 7-186 against hosts Australia in the Gabba. Despite Dinesh Karthik’s 14-ball 20 boosting India’s total, Kane Richardson finished 4-far as he ran through the middle orders. Marsh started the match off quickly with an 18-ball 35, while Finch played a strong inning, scoring 54 off 54 balls. He hit 7 fours and 3 sixes in the process. Even with Steve Smith falling 11 for 12, Australia seemed comfortable chasing Finch and Glenn Maxwell in the middle. India backed off towards the end, especially with some acrobatic efforts on the field from Virat Kohli, to cut the equation down to 11 from the last 6. Rohit Sharma called up Mohammed Shami to replace Jasprit Bumrah for his first over of the game and he delivered. He gave away a few twos early on and then later in the innings, he had a sequence of four wickets – including one run.
Brief Scores: India186/7 in 20 overs (KL Rahul 57, Suryakumar Yadav 50; Kane Richardson 4-30) beat Australia 180 in 20 overs (Aaron Finch 76; Mohammed Shami 3-4, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2-20) by 6 runs
At the Allan Border Field in Brisbane, the other finalist of last year’s T20 World Cup – New Zealand – suffered a losing start to their warm-ups as they folded for just 98. Though Wayne Parnell made the early incisions with the wickets of Finn Allen and Kane Williamson, New Zealand then succumbed to spin as the trio of Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi and Aiden Markram picked six wickets between them. Guptill’s 23-ball 26 was the best effort in an otherwise sorry scorecard.
In response, South Africa hurried to a nine-wicket victory with opener Rilee Rossouw smashing an unbeaten 32-ball 54, with 9 fours and a six.
Brief Scores: New Zealand98 in 17.1 overs (Martin Guptill 26, Glenn Phillips 20; Keshav Maharaj 3-17, Tabraiz Shamsi 2-6, Wayne Parnell 2-8) lost to South Africa 100/1 in 11.2 overs (Rilee Rossouw 54*) by 9 wickets
