David Warner ruled out of first Test against India with groin injury

AUS vs IND 3rd T20: What Experts said as Wade, spinners help Aussies salvage some pride

The Indian batsmen finally faltered at last as Aussie spinners finally got around to have the best of Hardik Pandya and Virat Kohli at crucial moments to give their team a win at last. Even after this 12 run loss at the Sydney Cricket Ground, India won the series 2-1 and moved to the Tests with a bit of momentum and a lot of confidence. While Mitchell Swepson got the Man of the Match award for his impressive 3/23 in four overs, Hardik Pandya was adjudged Man of the Series for his impact in the entire series. Swepson got the important wickets of Shikhar Dhawan, Sanju Samson, and Shreyas Iyer. Captains' Viewpoints The Indian captain Virat Kohli was happy getting back at the Aussies with a series win after getting drubbed in the ODIs. Speaking in the post-match presentation ceremony, Kohli lauded his players saying that the same competitive spirit needs to be carried to the Tests as well. “The series win is a little asterisk for us to finish the 2020 season on a high,” he said. “We need to take the same competitive attitude into the Tests, and having played here a few times, we can score runs as well. Once it's time to capitalize and score, we need to do that session by session,” added Kohli. The skipper was also confident that the current side is stronger than the last one. Taking about today’s chase Kohli said, “At one stage when Hardik started going we thought we could pull it off. The middle over phase during our batting cost us the game. A partnership of 30-odd would've made it easier for Hardik.” Kohli,32, thinks that the team is managing to find ways to come back and give the opposition a scare every time. He also praised teh strong Sydney crowd. “I feel the crowd was a factor as well, it's always giving you a dimension of motivation. Our crowd pulls us through sometimes, and Australia's too, and we as players feed off the crowd's energy,” he concluded. The Aussie captain Aaron Finch continued being on the winning side of the match in Sydney as after the two ODIs, he won a T20I too in Sydney (He did not play the previous game.) “It was a great series, and we just happened to be on the wrong end of the first two,” Finch said in the post-match presentation. Lauding the two spinners, who gave away just 44 runs in seven overs, at a time when teh chasing team needed to gove above nine all the time, Finch said, “It's the first time we've had two leg-spinners in the side, and they were bold with the short boundaries here, so credit to both of them.” “Swepson bowled the 7th over against Shikhar and Virat, both destructive in their own ways, but Zamps bowled really well as well,” he added. Summing up the entire season post the 2019 World Cup, Finch said, “We played some great white-ball cricket over the last 18 months and really proud of the bunch.” Expert Opinion While the match was in focus, the umpiring decisions were scrutinized thoroughly, especially the wides in teh second innings, as well as the DRS of Matthew Wade. However, it was the dropped catches that got the creampie treatment on Twitter. Gaurav Kalra had the best of the comments on the dropped catches saying that it was better, that the series ended with a dropped catch as that has been the main feature of the series. Cricket Journalist Vimal Kumar pointed out how the loss ended Team India's winning streak in the T20Is for the last 10 games. Boria Majumdar, a cricket expert, and commentator raised an important point saying that Sanju Samson, has finally got a full three-game run and failed immensely, meaning that he wouldn't be getting many chances in the future. Freddy Wilde, a cricket analyst from England was also talking serious business and it related to Australia's chances at the 2021 World Cup. He raised the point of how the Australian middle-order needed help while the opening slot has too many contenders. Aakash Chopra the cricketer turned analyst discussed the decision involving Matthew Wade and how it was fair of the umpires to term the DRS null and void. And has been the tradition, we end the segment with a Gaurav Kalra pun, and of course, the Indian team didn't do what he predicted. With 1-1 in the limited-overs, the bandwagon now moves to the best of the game format- the Tests, with the first one, a day/night affair beginning at Adelaide Oval. How would the teams fare in that, would be exciting to watch.

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

The hosts Australia averted a clean sweep as a valiant effort from Virat Kohli with the bat proved to be not enough for the Australian batting efforts put on display in the last T20 of the three-match series. 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 a 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 has 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 fourth over. The breakthrough 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 agem, who almost choked India in the second T20, Mitchell Swepson was brought in to the attack with the hope of getting either of 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 were 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 their growth in the middle phase. Virat went on to score a big score but ate half of the deliveries the team had in its hands and his teammates were left to score double the runs on every deliveries to win the game. He scored 85 off 61 but that left his teammates only 59 balls to score 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 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 and the effect of suring required rate was quite telling on the fall of his wicket. Iyer has not got opportunity to bat freely in the middle in the series and Swepson made sure that he will finish the white-ball leg of the tour on a unsatisfactory note, trapping him inside the crease with an attempted leg spinning ball but it did not turn and went on with the arm to wrapp on Iyer’s pads to send him packing on a golden duck. Once again, the mettle was on Pandya to see off the game for his side and both he and captain Kohli looked set to at least run close to the total set by the hosts but Finch drew 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, wnet 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 to 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 separate for boundaries after a sluggish innings 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 shot 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 up the momentum. 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 off 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 that he attempted and missed. 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 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 too much happenings on the field. Right in the next over (10th), Natarajan trapped Wade in front of the stumps and no one bothered to appeal but 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 line of the stumps, umpires stepped in to deny India the wicket for failing to call for it within the 15 seconds of 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 Chahal and the leg spinner got the better of the swashbuckling right-hander by tossing a faster, leg spinning ball outside 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 devastating form as he holds the reputation for as India got back in the game with wickets in the end phase of the innings as the last four overs yielded only 41 runs when the situation could have been a lot worse for the visitors. Hardik Pandya was called the Man of the Series for his swashbuckling batting efforts throughout the the T20 series and especially the batting efforts that he put on in the last game to win Indian the game single-handedly in the last over. Mitchell Swepson was called Man of the Match for his highly-impressive spell of 23/3 from his four overs quota. The hosts will be relieved on averting the clean sweep but would be honest to admit that 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 year.

Ajay Jadeja's attempted funny comment goes wrong, draws ire of fans

Former India cricketer Ajay Jadeja, currently working as a commentator on the ongoing India vs Australia T20I series, put his foot in the mouth during the final game of the series on Tuesday. In an attempt to be humourous, he ended up making a comment about Virat Kohli that has drawn criticism from all around. The incident occured during Australia's innings in the match. When Virat dropped a catch offered by Matthew Wade, off the bowling of Washington Sundar, Jadeja, on air at the moment, remarked: "I am not worried about the Indian team but the baby arriving." The comment had missed the mark and soon, the Twitterati were up in arms over it.

Pandya is in the Dhoni-Yuvraj league of finishers: Gautam Gambhir

Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir praised all-rounder Hardik Pandya saying that he is now entering into the category of the great Indian finishers like former captain MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh. Speaking on a cricket website’s show, Gambhir said, “Hardik Pandya has played these kinds of innings in the Indian Premier League, and when you come into international cricket on the back of good innings in the IPL, then your confidence is very high.” His comments came after Pandya’s match-winning innings of 42 where he hit two sixes in teh final overs of Daniel Sams to get India across the line and give the team a famous series win in Sydney. The team had required 14 runs in the last over. Comparing the 27-year-old Pandya to legendary Indian finishers Gambhir, now a Parliamentarian said, “There are very few players like Hardik Pandya, there was Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni earlier and there is Glenn Maxwell now, they are capable of chasing any total or any target.” Even if you need 20-25 runs in the last over, these players make you believe that they can score it,” added the 39-year-old. In the third game too, Pandya was just getting into the groove before getting out of 20 on 13 balls.