By Abdul Shakoor 
It started with Virat Kohli winning the toss and opting to take 10 more with him in the play. Bhuvneshwar Kumar started excellently giving only one run in his 1st over and Indians controlled the run flow in 1st half of the powerplay. Finch played some good strokes to release the pressure but found his partner D’arcy Short mistiming one to long on’s hands.
Australian Innings
Chris Lynn got off the mark with a cover drive and showed some “Lynnsanity” by hitting three sixes to Khaleel Ahmed. One of those sixes was an absolute missile which projectile covering 108 meters from the Australian batsman. Kuldeep Yadav was still causing problems at the other end. Finch, in an attempt to break the shackles, edged one to short third man, courtesy a Kuldeep wrong’un. Chris Lynn eventually fell to the Chinaman.
Maxwell and Stoinis took their time beautifully to set the tone of the finishing touch to the innings. Maxwell launched Krunal Pandya for three consecutive sixes in his third over. Krunal Pandya had a very expensive outing with the ball and his figure were 4-0-55-0. This was not India’s day in the fielding with dropped catches. After Khaleel put one down on the 1st ball of 17th over, rain joined in. Maxwell hit one straight into the spider cam – called as a dead ball.
Rain reduced the overs of the match to 17 and batsmen came to play 5 balls, Maxwell had a long walk back after hitting one in the hands of short square leg fielder. Australia finished on 158 which became 174 due to DLS method. The stage was set to a good extent with 37, 46 and 33 runs from Lynn, Maxwell and Stoinis respectively with a healthy 170+ strike rate.
Indian Innings
In contrast to Australia’s innings, India started off pretty well with Dhawan’s cover drive and a streaky boundary that may have hit the stumps on any other day. Boundaries kept coming from Dhawan’s bat but Rohit played a nothing looking chip-shot to get himself out. Dhawan continued his good form and kept hitting boundaries to chase the big total. He then tried lofts and hit Jason Behrendroff for 16 in an over where he mistakenly raised his bat at 49.
KL Rahul never looked comfortable on the pitch and was stumped by Zampa, courtesy a close decision of nothing behind the crease. Virat Kohli had a dropped catch, a misfield and nothing score in the opening T20. Did he get out misjudging a wrong’un from Zampa which had bounced well, mistiming one to short third man – a copy of his opponent captain’s dismissal? A little bit.
Dhawan got lucky two times in his innings of 76(42) but his uppercut didn’t work out well in the hands of the third man at boundary edge. Pant coupling with Karthik hammered tye for 25 runs of the over. Karthik’s experience was on exhibition but Pant’s juvenile shot got him out (reverse paddle and he hit the stumps with his bat too after fiving an easy catch).
Stoinis was the man to save 13 runs from the last over and he didn’t disappoint, dismissing Krunal Pandya and Dinesh Karthik on consecutive deliveries. A good pressure catch from Maxwell of Pandya and a good over by Stoinis saw Australia cruising towards the victory taking the lead 1-0.
Adam Zampa was the man of the match for his spell of 4-0-22-2.
A glimpse of the monstrous hit from Chris Lynn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xodK28eRZS8
Zainab Shafiq