India national cricket team’s batting sensation Rinku Singh played a wonderful innings for the team in the fourth T20I of the five-match series against Australia National Cricket Team at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur on Friday, December 1.
Australia won the toss and opted to bowl first in the match. A total of 9 changes were made to the teams for the match: the hosts made 4 and the visitors made 5.
India dropped Tilak Varma, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh and Ishan Kishan and replaced them with Shreyas Iyer, Mukesh Kumar, Deepak Chahar and Jitesh Sharma. Elsewhere, Chris Green, Ben Dwarshuis, Josh Philippe, Ben McDermott and Matthew Short replaced Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Nathan Ellis, Kane Richardson and Josh Inglis in Australia.
Batting first, India got off to a good start as opening batsmen Yashasvi Jaiswal (37) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (32) bowled very well. After that, India lost Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav to low scores but Rinku Singh (46) and Jitesh Sharma (35) showed a batting masterclass to provide stability for India.
Rinku Singh smashed 46 runs off 29 balls and his innings consisted of 4 fours and 2 beautiful sixes. His first six were a spectacular reverse sweep, while his second six were a tremendous 100m maximum.
On the third ball of the 12th over, Matthew Short bowled a lofted delivery on the middle stump. Rinku Singh stepped forward on the front foot, leaned over and smashed the ball back for a six.
The children showed character and that was the most important thing for us – Suryakumar Yadav
India won the match by 20 runs against Australia and with the victory sealed the series. Speaking after the match, India captain Suryakumar Yadav said the toss was the only thing that didn’t go in their favor. He said:
“Other than the pitch, everything (went well). The boys showed character and that was the most important thing for us. We spoke in the pre-match meeting to go out and express ourselves and not be afraid.
“I always loved putting pressure on Axar and the way he bowled was incredible. The plan (during the death overs) was to go for the yorkers and then see what happens.”