There were several of the best artists in the recent T20I series between Australia and India and here we do an XI combined with some of the most talked about names in the series.
India came back strong on their challenging tour of Australia by defeating the home team 2-1 in the three-match T20I series. Virat Kohli’s men lost the ODI series 1-2 after two consecutive defeats in Sydney before regaining one in Canberra. With the victory of the T20I series, India has now remained undefeated in all their bilateral T20I Down Under series which included more than one game.
While the series played in 2011-12 (two games) and 2018-19 (three games) were tied 1-1, India won the 2015-16 series 3-0 before securing the latter. Virat Kohli also became the first Indian captain to give his country a victory in series contested in all three formats. India was also happy to be able to win the series despite the absence of a limited overs giant like Rohit Sharma.
In the T20I series, however, it was close competition with all three games coming down to late installments for a result. The visitors won the first match in Canberra by 11 runs and the second in Sydney by 6 wickets. The Kangaroos fought back well to take third, also played in Sydney, by 12 runs to avoid a cover-up as in 2015-16. There were quite a few individual artists on both sides and here’s a look at a combo XI that can be derived from the T20I series.
Matthew Wade as starter 1 and goalkeeper:
The 32 year old wicketkeeper-batter he has rediscovered himself in international cricket late in his career and the series against India proved that he is far from a spent force. Playing in an international series after three months and at home since January, Wade needed to make sure he kept Alex Carey behind in the race, particularly ahead of next year’s T20 World Cup in India.
Wade started badly with a seven-on-nine at No. 6 in the first game that the Australians lost closely while chasing 162. The player encountered more challenges in the second game in which he was thrown into the captaincy as regular pattern Aaron Finch was injured. Wade seized the opportunity and added a third part to his role in the game: the opening. He scored half a century (58 out of just 32) to give his team a good start before his Indian counterpart Kohli defeats him. It was only his second fifty in the format and his first against India since 2012. Wade caught Kohli but still couldn’t stop the visitors from winning the game and with that, the series.
The captaincy returned to Finch in the final game, but Wade continued to have his starting job. He made another fifty, his third in T20I and as many against India, but made sure he continued in the middle to help Australia get a decent total. He eventually fell to second to last for his highest score of 80 with just 53 balls, as his team totaled 186 of 5. Australia won the game by 12 runs and Wade finished as the best rider in the series with a total of 145.
