Kohli fifty drives India to 188/3 against Australia

The Australian T20 captain also reflected on his side’s fielding efforts after they put down a few chances and also let slip an uncharacteristically high number of runs during India’s innings. Nehra bowled an impressive first over conceding just 5 runs.

For India, debutant bowler Jasprit Bumrah made an impressive start to his T20 career by claiming three wickets, while spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja shared four wickets apiece.

In the first match of the T20I series, India were at their dominant best as they exposed Australia’s weaknesses in the format.

David Warner and Aaron Finch began the Australian innings with clear intentions of taking the fight to the opposition as early as possible. He required 11 balls to complete a legitimate over where gave away 19 runs. R Ashwin dismissed Finch to almost end all hopes for Australia.

Shane Watson (2-24) was the pick of the Australian bowlers in India’s tall score of 188 for three in the first T20 match and Warner welcomed his teammate’s return to the global fold. Kohli gets pretty emotional out there, doesn’t he? Ashwin, Jadeja, Bumrah and Pandya all got 2 wickets each while Nehra finished with 1 wicket in a flawless day for the Indian bowling attack.

Australia acting coach Michael Di Venuto has warned payers not to think of their up-coming three-game Twenty20 series against India as an audition for the T20 World Cup in March.

Living up to his tag of one of the most unsafe striker with the bat, Kohli once again proved his worth in the first T20I against Australia in Adelaide, a ground where he has always played special knocks.

“I could take this stadium with me wherever I bat… this stadium is right up there with anywhere in the world”, Kohli said. “The beauty about his batting is the top hand, when needed to play shots on the on side and the same delivery, same line, same length the bottom hand comes into play and he whips it to mid-wicket, so what does a bowler do”.

“We didn’t help ourself with our catching, it is something that we have seriously got to look at”, he said.

Finch said it was near futile setting a field for Kohli, given the strokeplayer’s soft hands, supple wrists and twinkling feet. At the end of the day, no one means to drop them, everyone trains hard and everyone caught them beautifully in practice yesterday.

Virat Kohli had openly agreed that he believes in healthy sledging and as long as the line is not crossed, that aspect of the game will not bother him. As you saw in the final ODI, MS Dhoni and Manish Pandey ran really well between the wickets which is why the team got over the line.