India National Cricket Team 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 in the teams for the match with the hosts making 4 and the visitors making 5.
India left out Tilak Varma, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh, and Ishan Kishan and replaced them with Shreyas Iyer, Mukesh Kumar, Deepak Chahar, and Jitesh Sharma. On the other hand, 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 were off to a good start as opening batsmen Yashasvi Jaiswal (37) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (32) played really well. After that India lost Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav for low scores, but Rinku Singh (46) and Jitesh Sharma (35) showcased a batting masterclass to provide stability to India.
Rinku Singh smashed 46 runs off 29 balls and his innings consisted of 4 fours and 2 beautiful sixes. His first six came off a spectacular reverse-sweep while his second six was a tremendous 100-m maximum.
On the 3rd ball of the 12th over, Matthew Short bowled a pitched-up delivery on the middle stump. Rinku Singh went on the front foot, bent low, and smashed the ball over backward point for a six.
Boys showed character and that was most important for us – Suryakumar Yadav
India won the match by 20 runs against Australia and with the win they sealed the series. Speaking after the game, India captain Suryakumar Yadav said that the toss was the only thing that didn’t go in their favor. He said:
“Other than toss, everything (went well). Boys showed character and that was most important for us. We spoke in the meeting before the game to go out and express yourself and be fearless.
“I always love putting Axar under pressure and the way he bowled was unbelievable. The plan (during the death overs) was to go for the yorkers and then see what happens.”