Kohli sets up 37-run win for India

ADELAIDE: Virat Kohli spent the recent ODI series piling up runs all over Australia, hundreds in two games and half-centuries in two more. He hovered at a run a ball for most of the series, finishing with 381 runs from 384 deliveries. But there were times India might have wished he would change gear instead of remaining on cruise control. That lift in tempo came in the first T20, Kohli’s unbeaten 90 from 55 balls setting up an Indian win by 37 runs at Adelaide Oval.
There were others who contributed to the result: Suresh Raina provided valuable support with 41 off 34 balls and Rohit Sharma set India’s innings off to a strong start with 31 from 20 after Aaron Finch sent them in. Jasprit Bumrah and India’s spinners then stifled Australia in the chase, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja each collecting two wickets and keeping the runs tight, giving Australia an unwelcome but important taste of what they might face in the World T20 in India in March.
But Kohli was the real architect of this win. Remarkable though it is, Kohli is yet to score a century in his prolific Twenty20 career, and he looked like he might rectify that in his 176th match in the format. Kohli passed his previous highest T20 international score of 78 not out and had moved on to 87 by the start of the final over, but faced only the first and last balls of the 20th. Raina was dismissed off the second ball, and MS Dhoni used the others to smash 11 not out off three.
It meant India finished on 3 for 188 and from there they deserved to be firm favourites: no team has ever chased down more than 158 to win a T20 international in Australia. There were some encouraging signs early for Australia as Aaron Finch and David Warner rushed to 0 for 34 from the first three overs, but Bumrah helped tie them down and claimed the important wicket of Warner, caught pulling for 17 off 9.It was a strange sort of match in terms of personnel, full of debutants and returning veterans whose fortunes fluctuated wildly. In his first T20 international Bumrah was excellent, his 3 for 23 key to restricting Australia. His fellow Indian debutant, Hardik Pandya, was all over the place – literally. His first over in international cricket brought five wides on both sides of the pitch, but he bounced back to pick up the wickets of Chris Lynn and Matthew Wade to finish with 2 for 37 off three.