9th in final: Australia 49-0 (Warner 19, Finch 28) Saini flips short to start over, and Finch pings another boundary through the out side, midair into space at the point of cover. He throws a single away, then Warner takes a short ball to his hip and plays that little low shot he likes, helping him back behind the square leg for four more. Saini 14 of 9 balls, then throws fuller and very wide through Warner, who lands completely and cannot reach him, trying to whip him midway. Saini returns to the left-hander’s body, tying him up for the last two balls.
04:25
8th place: Australia 40-0 (Warner 15, Finch 23) Bumrah will launch his fourth at a trot. Warner has barely met in the past two overs. He now gets the hit through an inside edge on Finch’s running platform. Warner picks up a couple of runs via midwicket. A strong offside field in the ring for Warner: point, point of cover, point back. Hit that trap a couple of times, no runs. Silence finished.
04:21
7th in final: Australia 37-0 (Warner 13, Finch 22) There’s a heist at play with a pair of pitch invaders. These are not typical of drunken afternoons, they carry signs protesting against the Adani mining company. Some tangential relevance to an Indian party, given that the gigantic wealthy and extremely shady Indian company with a terrible environmental and ethical record is currently trying to excavate half of Queensland and burn a mountain of coal to further cement the climate crisis.
Given the virus restrictions, players stay away from protesters and protesters stay away from players and eventually some stewards come out in the middle and escort uninvited guests.
Eventually Navdeep Saini has his chanceto pitch his first ball in Australia, which Finch cuts for four. Four spot balls follow, then a brilliant dive from Jadeja at one point back stops another cut shot limit and holds it to just one.
04:14
6th over: Australia 32-0 (Warner 13, Finch 17) A Bumrah goalie for starters, in which Finch can’t get anything done as he leans into a leg stump line. But when Bumrah falls short again, at chest height, Finch nails a compelling limit for the first time today. The third man and the thin leg are the only two outfielders left out, and he pulls the wicket square across the ground for four. With a single to middle, Finch is up 5,000 ODI runs, behind only Warner and Ricky Ponting in terms of how many games it has taken him to reach that mark. He has 15 Australians ahead of him on the all-time racing list.
04:08
5th: Australia 27-0 (Warner 13, Finch 12) The Australians are starting to get going. Warner drops one, Finch leads two from Shami. He then hits the pads, but the ball slows down inside the middle rope and forces them to run three. Another three runs as Warner crosses the line and instead of messing it up, he shoots back over the pitcher’s head, flying high and stopping when he hits the ground. Finch takes a wide ball and smokes it completely with the cut shot, but straight down the ground to the third man. Ten from the end.
04:05
4th final: Australia 17-0 (Warner 9, Finch 6) Bowls Bumrah, Finch drive for four! A streaky shot, hit even though it wasn’t complete enough, hits him flat and in the air, but Agarwal launches through extra cover and can’t reach him. Bumrah tries to hit a short one but misses on the side of the leg. KL Rahul is the part-time goalkeeper on this team and he doesn’t stop the ball cleanly, allowing them an extra bonus (read all about it). Warner taps behind the point, and there is his other trademark: running first so hard it gives him time to come back for a second. That seemed like a single from the start, a hit just squared off third man safety, but he recovers by two. His speed between wickets saves him in the last of the pluses, as Warner just passes halfway, and Finch is so conditioned to run into everything they do on this shot as well. India’s players erupt when Saini hits the stumps directly with an under-arm dip shot, but the replay shows that Warner’s own dip just shoved a bat into his ground.
03:58
3rd half: Australia 8-0 (Warner 6, Finch 2) Shami continues from Randwick End, with Clive Churchill Stand behind him. Tie Finch up for three balls in a row, right on the stump. Four balls. In the fifth, Finch marches towards Shami and tries to hit the offside, but Shami has thrown wider this time and overcomes the shot. “It’s the length control,” says Ed Cowan on ABC radio. Shami has backed up a lot at all times, making it impossible to drive. Finch has the same final ball motion, but he walks further from his stump, counteracting the wide line and stabbing a run towards the decks.
03:53
2nd over: Australia 7-0 (Warner 6, Finch 1) Jasprit Bumrah to pitch second, which was so, so good on his last visit to these shores. Warner lands another drop-and-run single, but this time he didn’t want it: He was standing there holding his bat saying no, but Finch had already committed and was running to the edge of danger with the ball rolling back near the bowler in tracking Bumrah. Warner finally takes off on the run, and Finch makes a great slide and dive down the side of the house to the end of the yard. Finch goes off the mark with his own push and sprint, then Warner finds the first boundary of the match, his trademark square back wicket hit on the out side.
“It’s great to have you back to interrupt my Excel nightmares!” writes Rohan O’Farrell. Not all is bad, spreadsheets are where my best statistics live.
03:47
1st half: Australia 1-0 (Warner 1, Finch 0) Here we go! India takes to the field in the new dark blue retro uniforms. Mohammed Shami will start with us, and he’s right out of the box, pitching with pace and picking up a ball that bounces away from Warner’s outer edge. Warner drags the next ball forward and drops a single gently offside. He’s so good at it. Finch is now the hitter with problems outside of his stump. Left-handed, right-handed, it doesn’t matter to Shami.
Australians, don’t worry about the score, even for the Australian games we write it in the style used by … the rest of the world.
03:43
Iain Bannantyne has sent an email, very excited to see things going. “Can you explain how many fans can enter and alcohol has no restrictions?”
The current capacity is 23,000, which is about half of the usual capacity. I’m currently not in a position to be staring at the drinks, but the downstairs bars seemed ready for trade as I made my way across the floor earlier. There is probably a consumption rule in the seats, as with many places.
03:31
The highlights about those teams are: Australia with a very conventional XI, but it’s interesting that Labuschagne is on the No5 list when he has done all his good work for Australia so far at No3. Smith to the first drop has needed it. Labuschagne’s ability to speed up will be one thing to consider. Carey and Maxwell have traded places in the setup that produced their epic winning position in the most recent Australian game, at Old Trafford in September, when they won the series 2-1.
For India, Agarwal on Shubman Gill is a talking point, Shreyas Iyer in the middle is interesting, and Navdeep Saini will play despite some recent problems with his back.
03:20
Equipment
Australia Aaron Finch * David warner Steven Smith Marcus stoinis Marnus Labuschagne Glenn maxwell Alex Carey + Pat cummins Mitchell starc Adam Zampa Josh hazlewood
An interesting choice given India’s prowess as they chase ODI, but Australian coach Justin Langer subscribes to the scoreboard pressure school of thought most of the time.
02:48
Get in touch
You can write to us on the Internet. Observations, meditations, protests. My email address is pretty straightforward, [email protected]. Or if you want to submit allegations of voter fraud, the appropriate medium is Twitter, via @GeoffLemonSport.
02:16
Preamble
Lemon Geoff
It’s been a long time coming, but the Australian men’s team is back in action at home. The most recent occasion was the first of a day against New Zealand in March, in a series that was abruptly canceled when the Land of the Long White Cloud announced imminent border closures and the team had to fly home to avoid canceled flights and weeks. quarantine. That match was played behind closed doors in an empty stadium, but this match today may have something of a crowd, naturally under virus restrictions.
The press box here at the Sydney Cricket Ground is also sparsely populated with attendees who are widely spaced (in the physical rather than the mental sense). The field has some green undertones, but I suspect that they will be illusory in terms of any effect on the ball, and that the field will be hard and true. The garden here seems quite dry, a bit of white shows through the grass.
India is the opponent today, and what a match it will be. Virat Kohli with a limited time to make an impact before returning home from the tour before Christmas. India’s players braced after a long IPL season, although they will have to adjust that approach a bit for 50-year-old cricket. We will have teams and the launch for you as they happen.
