India Qualifies for the Semi-Finals, Defeating Australia

India wins against Australia by 24 runs. Rohit Sharma was on top of his performance level and scored the fastest half-century of the ICC Men’s T20I World Cup 2024.

Top-class cricket between top-notch teams. India vs Australia T20 was full of emotions, drama, action and top of all, crazy cricket.

A lot happened in the match; Rohit Sharma, the Hitman, scored the fastest half-century of the ICC Men’s T20I World Cup 2024. Axar Patel took an almost impossible catch, and Travis Head horrified the Indian bowlers, let’s see what else happened in the match!

First Innings

Winning the toss, Australia decided to field first.

This edition of the ICC Men’s T20I World Cup 2024 has not been quite well for Virat Kohli. This match was no different, Virat Kohli got out in the 1.4 over. Hazlewood delivered a quick ball with extra bounce and Virat tried to pull but the effort didn’t bear any fruit. The ball swiftly landed in Tim David’s hands.

Virat Kohli got dismissed scoring nothing.

The moment when things started to disbalance for the Indian team, the Hitman, Rohit Sharma played like a captain is supposed to. Playing every ball with caution, leveraging every chance to hit a boundary, Rohit Sharma scored much-needed 92 runs off 41 balls, hitting 7 fours, and 8 sixes with a strike rate of 224.39.

Rohit Sharma scored the fastest half-century in just 19 balls. What a way to start the celebration of completing 17 glorious years in International cricket.

Suryakumar Yadav assisted Rohit Sharma to add runs to the India vs Australia T20 scorecard. The ICC No.1 batsman scored 31 runs off 16 balls.

Shivam Dube added 28 runs in 22 balls. In the final overs of the innings, Hardik Pandya played responsibly and scored 27* runs off 17 balls.

Eventually, India left a good target score of 205 runs for Australia to chase.

Second Innings

The commencement of Australia’s innings was nothing different than India’s. Like Kohli, David Warner got dismissed in the 0.6 over. The outswinger from Arshdeep edged David’s bat, Suryakumar dived and caught the ball.

Just like Rohit Sharma stayed on the pitch longer and scored runs, Travis Head did the same for Australia. Head utilized the powerplay quite efficiently. Australia scored 65 runs in the first six overs of the innings, whereas India scored 68 runs.

Australia was playing smoothly, but then Kuldeep Yadav delivered a spin ball, and Marsh pulled a shot on the leg side. The ball travelled straight like a lightning bolt, Axar anticipated the ball’s trajectory, took a jump at the right time and the ball hugged his palms, it comfortably landed in his hands. What a catch, one of the best in the T20 World Cup 2024!

Mitchell Marsh scored 37 runs off 28 balls. In the half of the innings, Australia scored 99/2.

Things were starting to get intense for both teams here. Glenn Maxwell and Travis Head are now on the pitch.

Kuldeep Yadav did it again! Bowled a slow delivery, Maxwell moved forward for a shot, but it missed the bat and hit the stumps. Maxwell scored 20 runs off 12 balls.

It was the perfect day for the spin bowlers. This time Axar dismissed Stoinis, and Hardik managed to catch the ball near Gully.

Australia’s pace started to turn down. Now the priority for the Australian batters was to play cautiously, but, but, but sadly Travis could not lead the ball outside the boundary line, instead it took a flight upwards, and right underneath, Rohit Sharma was waiting for the ball to land safely in his hands, and it happened. Travis scored 76 runs off 43 balls, hitting 9 fours, and 4 sixes at the strike rate of 176.74.

Just when Australia needed to protect the wicket, another one fell. A hard length delivery by Arshdeep touched the outside edge Kuldeep took a safe catch and Matthew Wade got dismissed scoring only one run.

Then in the 17.5 over, Tim David fell prey to a full toss delivery by Arshdeep Singh and Bumrah took the catch. Tim David could add only 15 runs. Australia was losing the match, ball after ball.

In the end, Australia couldn’t reach the target score and India won the match by 24 runs.

Arshdeep Singh was the star bowler and took 3 wickets in 4 overs with an economy rate of 9.20. Kuldeep Yadav took 2 wickets at an economy of 6.00. Jasprit and Axar took one wicket each.

With this win, India will be playing the semi-final match of the T20 World Cup 2024 on 27th June against England.

Also read - England Becomes the First Team to Qualify into Semis in T20I World Cup 2024.