India vs Australia | Indian Players rated and slated from their seven-wicket loss in Bengaluru
BCCI
A Glenn Maxwell special with the bat overpowered the MS Dhoni-Virat Kohli combo as Australia put India’s home T20 dominance to a halt. The game may act as a reality check for Team India and they need to have to rethink their approach of first innings batting in the following T20I games.
KL Rahul (8/10): For the second time in a row, Rahul seemed extremely confident as an opener and his bat did the talking to set Chinnaswamy ablaze. His pull shots were
Shikhar Dhawan (3/10): It was as bizarre an innings as it could get. He scored 14 runs off 24 balls when the track was very easy to bat on meant India failed to score another 20 runs that were there. The most unfortunate part of Dhawan’s innings that he couldn’t connect to most of the deliveries in the powerplay overs and that put unnecessary pressure on Virat Kohli and Rahul.
Virat Kohli (9/10): What a contrasting day it was for the Indian skipper! Returning to Bangalore - the stage for many Kohli epics in the IPL - he was scratchy from the first ball and seemed like he was grappling with some sort of injuries. However, once he hits Jhye Richardson for a six in the 15th over, he got into the mood and smashed five more of them to take India to 190. It was the innings that eventually proved to be the difference in the final total.
Rishabh Pant (3/10): Another T20I and another terrible outing for the Delhi cricketer. His ambition to play slog sweeps on every length ball meant Pant was found out very soon. It seemed like he was trying to compromise with his natural style to settle his position in the team, which is of course not advisable in the T20Is if you are a flamboyant cricketer.
MS Dhoni (8/10): After a slow start to the innings to get an idea of the conditions, Dhoni unleashed his vintage self once again and putting Vizag no show behind, he managed to score 40 runs off 23 balls. Once Kohli started hitting boundaries, Dhoni found a way out to take on the spinners with elan. His innings was as fluent as it could get. I am going with 8 for him.
Dinesh Karthik (8/10): It was a pure DK-style
Vijay Shankar (6/10): First the Indian team management needs to explain what they want from him. After they decided not to promote him up in the order, they used him as a proper bowler today, knowing fully that he didn’t bowl at all in the New Zealand series. With his pace going down gradually, he was found out, but not before sending two of their batsmen to the hut. A decent performance. Could have been touted good had he not conceded runs at 9.50.
Krunal Pandya (6.5/10): The Pandya senior managed to pull things back in his fourth over and if not because of that six off Maxwell on the penultimate delivery of the over, it could have been a good performance. Still, 33 runs off 4 overs while doing a holding job in the middle-overs doesn’t look that bad.
Yuzvendra Chahal (3/10): Such is the mercurial nature of a slow leg-spinner in the T20s that you can never trust them to deliver. The RCB leggie, who had many memorable moments at the venue, had bowled a terrible length and apart from few googlies, he himself was not sure about the flight and the line of the balls.
Jasprit Bumrah (8/10): By conceding just five runs in the penultimate over, Jasprit Bumrah made sure that India still had a chance to win the game and that itself talked about his immense quality as a death bowler. Slowly and steadily, he is making himself a phenomenon in the limited-overs cricket and no matter the result, this match proved that he would go into the World Cup as world’s best bowler in the limited-overs version of the game.
Siddarth Kaul (5/10
