AUS vs IND | 3rd T20: Kohli's lone effort goes in vain as hosts avert clean sweep

The hosts Australia averted a clean sweep by defeating India by 12 runs in the third and final T20 of the series as a valiant effort from Virat Kohli with the bat proved to be not enough for the Australian batting efforts put on display. The tourists won the series by a margin of 2-1 after a couple of dismal performances in the first two ODIs of the white-ball leg of the series.

Chasing the target of 187 runs, India were off to the worst possible start with KL Rahul falling into a trap, hitting the ball to a tactically placed Steve Smith at the deep midwicket boundary. Finch had called on Glenn Maxwell to bowl the first over of the innings in a big risk that paid off with the wicket of Rahul.

Next man in, Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan kept up the pace of the chase as they took Sean Abbott for 11 runs in his first over after a very economical over from Maxwell. 

Kohli took nine balls before hitting a thumping flick off Daniel Sams who had got him out in the last game and the Indian innings was up and running at 33 for one at the end of the fourth over.

The break arrived for India when Finch reintroduced Abbott to finish off the power play but Kohli and Dhawan made sure that they made good use of the last over of the field restrictions. The duo took 15 runs off the sixth over to keep up with the required run rate.

Hero of the last game, who almost choked India in the second T20, Mitchell Swepson, was brought into the attack with the hope of getting either men from the batting duo who have been in great touch in the T20 series.

Swepson bettered his performance in the final T20 and picked up the big three wickets of Dhawan, Samson, and Iyer to break the backbone of the Indian batting and derailed the chase that left Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya too much to do in the end overs. 

At the midway stage, India was guilty of eating up too many dot balls as the required rate had surged past 10 runs per over and the wickets at regular intervals kept on hampering the team's growth in the middle phase.

Virat went on to score 85 but ate half of the deliveries that the team had in its hands and his teammates were left to score double the runs on every delivery to win the contest. He scored 85 off 61 but that left his teammates only 59 balls to score the remaining 102 runs and that may well have proved detrimental for other batsmen.

When Dhawan was dismissed in the ninth over of the chase and Samson arrived at the crease, the young man had no other chance but to try and hit every second ball for a boundary to bring back the momentum for his side. Ultimately, he was not able to find boundaries and ended up throwing his wicket away with a half-hearted shot on a full toss as the effect of surging required rate was quite clearly telling on the fall of his wicket.

Iyer had not got the opportunity to bat freely in the series and Swepson made sure that he will finish the white-ball leg of the tour on an unsatisfactory note, trapping him inside the crease with an attempted leg-spinner which did not turn and went on with the arm to wrap Iyer’s pads and to send him packing for a golden duck.

Once again, the responsibility was on Pandya to see off the game for his side and both he and captain Kohli looked set to, at least, get close to the total set by the hosts. But Finch came up with another masterstroke as Zampa was introduced in an aggressive move to lure Pandya into false shots and the leg spinner repaid the faith, dismissing Pandya on his very first ball of the fresh spell and the target that was looking distant for the tourists, went out of their reach.

Earlier, Virat Kohli won the toss and decided to chase again after a successful attempt last time at the same ground.

The home side was stronger with the return of skipper Aaron Finch who missed the last game due to a hip injury but it did little to help them at the start of the match. Finch looked out of sorts against a relentless Washington Sundar who kept on coming with immaculate lengths and ultimately forced an error from Finch, to get him caught at mid-off position.

Steve Smith came to the crease and looked for boundaries after a sluggish inning in the last game, but both Sundar and Deepak Chahar bowled measured line and lengths to him.

On the other hand, Matthew Wade was going on his merry way and made full use of the short boundary on one side of the wicket and kept on hitting Sundar and Chahar into gaps and over the infield to score a second consecutive half-century in the series. He was looking ominous at one end while Smith was struggling yet again to keep the momentum going.

Kohli introduced Yuzvendra Chahal into the attack just after the power play and both he and Sundar kept it so tight for the Wade-Smith duo that the right-hander felt the urge of doing something against Sundar in the 10th over. Boundaries on the off-side were shorter and tempting for Smith to go against Sundar. 

He presented a chance to KL Rahul when he walked past a quicker one from Sundar but Rahul fumbled and Smith got the reprieve. He made sure to rub the salt into the wounds and smashed the next ball behind square on the off side with a similar shot. Sundar was smart enough to preempt more big shots of him and he also read Smith’s eagerness to go towards the off side. 

 Ultimately, he outsmarted Smith with a slower delivery that found Smith going too early in his attempted shot over the infield on the off-side and the ball disturbed his off stump in a much-needed relief for both Rahul and India.

Maxwell followed Smith’s departure and with him, there started a round of controversies and a rapid set of events on the field. In the next over (10th), Natarajan trapped Wade in front of the stumps but no one bothered to appeal. After looking at the replays on the big screen, Kohli decided to review the lbw decision. Wade was quick to object and although the review was called and Wade was found out in the line of the stumps, umpires stepped in to deny India the wicket for failing to call for it within the 15 seconds of the stipulated time. Wade, too, made good use of the reprieve and deposited Shardul Thakur way back into the stands on his very first ball of the match.  Maxwell was not far behind and he made sure Thakur did not get away after conceding a six in the early part of the over.

The drama was not over yet as Kohli brought back Chahal to get rid of Maxwell who has a history of struggles against the leg spinner. Chahal got the better of the swashbuckling right-hander by tossing a faster, leg-spinning ball over his eyeline, only to be found overstepping as Maxwell, too, earned a reprieve.

Maxwell went on to score a half-century off 31 balls but he did not look in as a devastating form as he holds the reputation for as India got back in the game with wickets in the end phase of the innings. The last four overs yielded only 41 runs when the situation could have been a lot worse for the visitors.

Hardik Pandya was deemed the Man of the Series for his swashbuckling batting efforts throughout the T20 series and especially the batting efforts that he put on in the last game to win India the game single-handedly in the last over.

Mitchell Swepson was called Man of the Match for his highly-impressive spell of 23/3 in his four overs quota.

The hosts will be relieved for averting the clean sweep but would be honest to admit that the touring Indian side exposed many frailties in their team while for the Indian white-ball sides, it would be a learning curve with two T20 world cups coming up in the next two years.

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