Australia v India: first T20 international – live!

5th over: India 30-1 (Rahul 20, Kohli 7) Adam Zampa comes on. Leg-spin in the Powerplay. Two fielders out at long-on and deep mid. Everybody up on the off side. Zampa bowls a nice curling leg-break, teasing just outside off. KL Rahul scorches it along the carpet for four.

What a start.

Two more runs to that deep mid, as Kohli hustles back to the non-striker’s for the second. The repeats the dose, identically.

4th over: India 21-1 (Rahul 11, Kohli 7) That’s the definition of dismissive. Hazlewood bowls a decent length ball, fast, a touch straight, and Kohli just wafts it off his pads over midwicket for four. Poetry. Hazlewood has got Kohli out the last four times they’ve played an ODI, but India collect eight runs comfortably from that over.

3rd over: India 13-1 (Rahul 9, Kohli 1) Well, Rahul got that over going with the first boundary of the day, slashed over backward point, but Starc comes back with the first wicket of the day. Kohli is at the crease early, and off the mark first ball guiding a run to deep third.

There’s Mitchell Starc back! Full, swinging, lighting up the stumps. That thing he does better than anyone. This ball is left-arm over to a left-hander, angling in at middle stump, Dhawan plays an unconvincing waft across the line, and it swings away to evade his bat and clip the outside of off stump, still going fast enough to knock it out of the ground. Some delivery.

2nd over: India 6-0 (Rahul 4, Dhawan 1) Josh Hazlewood at the other end, Australia’s Test set-up continuing in the shortest form. How well did he bowl in the one-dayers? Such a good operator now. He’s starting off perfectly here, almost a full over at the left-handed Dhawan, just the right angle across him, back of a length so it’s hard to hit, drawing some missed shots and some outside edges, conceding a nicked single and a leg bye.

1st over: India 4-0 (Rahul 4, Dhawan 0) Mitch Starc to bowl after missing the third ODI the other night. Starts pretty nicely. Full, swinging, pitched up outside the off stump. Four balls in similar fashion, which isn’t always his go. Rahul drives at a few but can only beat the field for a couple of runs. Finally gets a straighter ball and flicks two more to fine leg.

The Australian team and extended squad come out onto the field without their shoes and stand around the Walkabout Wickets artwork, in a display of solidarity with Indigenous Australians. They’re also wearing their new Indigenous art uniforms tonight, which look excellent. It’s quite the picture with the late sun over the ground and the long shadows of the light towers stretching from one side to the other. If you want some trivia, Cameron Green is out there wearing AJ Tye’s shirt.

While we’re waiting, feel free to read this terrific, insightful, brave, incisive essay on the switch-hit, authored by… yeah, it was me.

Interesting for Australia with D’Arcy Short opening now that Warner is out injured. Finch there with him, Matthew Wade keeping and batting at three. Swepson the leg-spinner comes into the team from outside the white-ball squad, which is interesting. Ashton Agar hurt his calf muscle the other night and left them short on spin. Swepson was in the Australia A squad to play the red-ball warm-ups before the Test series.

Australia
Aaron Finch *
D’Arcy Short
Matthew Wade +
Steve Smith
Moises Henriques
Glenn Maxwell
Sean Abbott
Mitch Starc
Mitch Swepson
Adam Zampa
Josh Hazlewood

Kohli says, “It’s a great chance to have a look at a few players. Pretty excited for them.” Lots of changes from the ODI side. Jasprit Bumrah rested after a tough couple of games. T Natarajan bowled well on ODI debut and keeps his spot. The IPL boys in Chahar and Sundar get a run. KL Rahul to the top of the order, Samson into the middle. The form players remain: Dhawan, Kohli, Pandya, Jadeja.

India
Shikhar Dhawan
KL Rahul +
Virat Kohli *
Shreyas Iyer
Sanju Samson
Hardik Pandya
Ravindra Jadeja
Washington Sundar
Deepak Chahar
Mohammed Shami
Thangarasu Natarajan

And the hosts will bowl first, says captain Aaron Finch. So they’ll take the common approach and chase. Didn’t quite work for them in the last ODI here on Wednesday but they should have won that one, really.

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