India’s spinners led the way with the ball as the visitors took a 2-1 lead in their Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket series against Australia with a 48-run demolition of the home side on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
After losing the toss and being sent in to bat on Thursday, India reached 167-8 thanks to a well-made 46 from Shubman Gill and useful contributions from Abhishek Sharma (28) and Shivam Dube (22).
The world champions’ spin bowlers then took centre stage, bundling Australia out for 119, with off-spinner Washington Sundar taking 3-3 in just eight balls to finish off the match.
“I thought 167 was par on that wicket,” Australian captain Mitchell Marsh said.
“But batting was pretty hard – we had a few partnerships, but we just couldn’t get the big one that would give us momentum going into the back end of the innings.”
India would have gone into the innings break hoping for a bigger score than 167, but the total proved too much for the Australians, who started brightly but fell away alarmingly after reaching 67-1 in the ninth over.
The visitors will now head to Brisbane on Sunday, hoping to clinch the five-match series after the opening game in Canberra was washed out.
“I think the bowlers did really well,” India’s captain Suryakumar Yadav said.
“There was a little bit of dew, but they adapted really quickly.
“I think the combination [of our bowlers] suits us really well and bowling a side out is what we want from them,” he said.
India had looked like reaching an imposing score when openers Abhishek and Gill took on the Australian attack in the early overs.
The pair put on 56 off just 6.4 overs with little trouble before Abhishek, who had smashed a huge six off leg-spinner Adam Zampa two balls earlier, tried a second time only to be caught by Tim David on the long-on boundary.
Dube joined Gill and continued to score freely against Zampa, but he found the pace bowling harder to handle and was bowled by Nathan Ellis to leave India 88-2.
Ellis claimed his second when he bowled Gill, with India 121-3.
Any chance of a really big score disappeared four runs later when Yadav was caught on the boundary for 20, and the rest of the batting fell away.
Australian openers Marsh (30) and Matthew Short (25) made a bright start, but Indian bowlers kept chipping away, snaring wickets at key moments to take control.
India won the third T20I by five wickets, and Australia won the second by four wickets, while the opening match of the series was abandoned due to rain.
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