India registered a 6-run win in a thrilling warm-up match encounter against hosts in Australia, on Monday at The Gabba in Brisbane. KL Rahul’s batting and the death overs from Harshal Patel and Mohammed Shami were India’s biggest positive from this warm-up match.
Speaking of KL Rahul, the India opener got off to a blistering start, and it was a one-man show for the first quarter of India’s innings. A0,fter 5 overs, India’s score was 56/0 with 49 of those coming from KL Rahul’s bat in 25 balls, and his opening partner, skipper Rohit Sharma, had scored only 1 run in 5 balls.
Rohit Sharma animatedly gestured toward the Indian dugout
Rahul took down Marcus Stoinis in the 4th over cracking three fours and a six to the medium pacer. After the fifth ball of the over, Rahul seemed to have damaged his bat and needed it to be replaced and signalled for a bat change, but perhaps no one from the Indian dugout saw it.
This irked Rohit Sharma who then animatedly gestured with his hand to the dugout. The player who was bringing the bat was quick enough so an annoyed Rohit Sharma shouted ‘Aaja, Aaja…’ (Come, Come) and Mohammed Shami sprinted to bring the bats to KL Rahul, who then hit a boundary on the last ball to Stoinis with his new willow.
This series of events was caught on video and has gone viral on social media:
— Guess Karo (@KuchNahiUkhada) October 17, 2022
Shami and Harshal save India with superb death bowling
With 16 runs needed off the last 12 balls, another defence of a total looked out of hands as Australia cruised in their chase of 187. However, this time, Harshal Patel bowled a terrific 19th over, backed up by a superb 20th over from Shami.
Harshal Patel persisted with his slower ball to castle the well-set Finch (76 off 54 balls) and conceded only 5 runs in the 19th over. Mohammed Shami, who hadn’t bowled a single ball in the game till then, was summoned to bowl the last over with 11 runs needed. Cummins took two doubles on the first two balls before holing out at long-on to a terrific one-handed catch from Virat Kohli. Then Ashton Agar got run-out before Shami bowled the next two batters with pin-point yorkers to give India a confidence-boosting win.
India play their second warm-up game on Wednesday, against New Zealand.
