Riding on Shreyas Iyer’s half-century (53 off 37 balls) and useful late cameos by Jitesh Sharma (24 off 16) and Axar Patel (31 off 21), India posted 160/8 after being asked to bat first by Australia skipper Matthew Wade.
At innings break, Australia had the advantage having restricted the Indian batting line-up. But the Indian bowlers turned it around from a stage where Australia were cruising at 102/3 in the 13th over. Two wickets in the 17th over bowled by seamer Mukesh Kumar (3/32) changed the course of the match, and the Aussies ended up short at 154/8 to lose the match by six runs.
“Everybody says T20 cricket is batsman’s game. Batsmen may win you matches, but bowlers win you series,” said India captain Suryakumar Yadav in a video posted by the BCCI on microblogging website ‘X’.
India won the first and second T20I by two wickets and 44 runs, respectively. Australia then kept themselves alive by pulling one back with a five-wicket victory in Guwahati. But India sealed the series with a 20-run win in the fourth T20I, before making it 4-1 in Bengaluru on Sunday.
“Obvioulsy it feels good to win the series. On top of that being a captain, it feels great. Ek naya angle aaya hai life mei (there’s a new angle in life),” said Surya with a smile.
Indian spinners Axar Patel (1/14) and Ravi Bishnoi (2/29) once again played a crucial role in restricting the opposition. But the game could still have gone either way as Australia needed 10 runs to win in the final over bowled by Arshdeep Singh (2/40).
Arshdeep dismissed the dangerous Wade (22) and restricted the Australians to just three runs in the over.
“I have seen him (Arshdeep) bowl in such situations in franchise cricket, that’s why I kept his over as the last one,” said Surya, sharing his tactics.
