The veteran Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin shared a video on social media in which he can be seen bowling in the streets of Chennai, saying nothing can beat area cricket. Ashwin, who recently turned 36, was seen spending some time with youngsters as he bowled a few balls to them. Ashwin is currently on national duty as India is playing a three-match T20I series against Australia.
Under the captaincy of Rohit Sharma, the men in blue lost the opening game against Australia by 4 wickets in Mohali on September 20. Captioning the video on Instagram, R Ashwin wrote: “Nothing can beat Area Cricket.”
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India posted a huge score of 208/6 owing to Hardik Pandya’s quickfire knock of 71 not out off 30 balls, Suryakumar Yadav (46 off 25), and KL Rahul (55 off 35). During the chase, India got an early breakthrough as Axar Patel removed Australia captain Aaron Finch (22). However, the other opener Cameron Green and No.3 Steve Smith rebuilt the innings with their 70-run stand, which put India under pressure.
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Axar got the much-needed relief for India when he got the wicket of Green, who was dropped by Axar. Umesh Yadav got two wickets in the 12th over as he dismissed Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell. However, the incoming Matthew Wade took the game deep to keep the hopes of Australia alive.
Wade smashed three back-to-back boundaries off the bowling of Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the penultimate over before Pat Cummins took Australia home with a four. India and Australia will now be locking horns with each other on September 23 in Nagpur. India captain Rohit Sharma said that his bowlers didn’t bowl well and poor fielding cost the match.
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Talking about the loss, Rohit Sharma had said, “I don’t think we bowled that well. 200 is a good score to defend and at the same time we didn’t take our chances on the field. That’s about it. I think we batted brilliantly to get to that score. It was a great game for us to understand where we went wrong and what we can do better in the next game.”