Australia vs India, 1 T20I 2020, Canberra
Match Analysis
India won their eighth consecutive T20I as they defeated Australia by 11 runs at Manuka Oval, Canberra. Australia started well by getting quick wickets of Dhawan and Kohli. KL Rahul scored a 37-ball 50. Josh Hazlewood was struggling with the bowl, but Moises Henriques bowled brilliantly in the middle overs as he got three important wickets of Sanju Samson, Kl Rahul and Hardik Pandya. Adam Zampa bowled in tight lines as he conceded only 20 runs in his four overs by picking up the wicket of Manish Pandey.
Ravindra Jadeja scored his highest T20I score as his 23-ball 44 helped India post 161 onboard by losing seven wickets. Yuzvendra Chahal replaced Ravindra Jadeja as a concussion substitute. Australia added 56 in their opening stand. Despite the big opening stand, Australia was slowly starting to collapse as Chahal was getting wickets at regular intervals and Washington Sundar was bowling at an economy rate under 4.
Natarajan on debut picked crucial wickets of Maxwell, and Chahal picked three wickets in his spell. Chahal also becomes the first concussion substitute for winning the man of the match award.
Surprisingly, Shreyas Iyer was dropped out of the squad. I don’t see a reason for that? Iyer had a great IPL this year. He also led his team (Delhi Capitals) into the finals for the very first time. The Indian team needs to back players like Shreyas Iyer and give them more opportunities rather than just dropping them after two or three bad games. Manish Pandey was added into the playing 11 in place of Shreyas Iyer. That decision proved them costly as he scored only two runs in the match, and dropped a catch.
The Concussion Controversy
Ravindra Jadeja was hit on the helmet by Mitchell Starc in the last over of the first innings. An interesting thing to notice here is that the physio did not come to attend Jadeja immediately after getting hit on the helmet. However, Yuzvendra Chahal was brought in as a concussion substitute for the second innings.
Justin Langer (Australian Head Coach) was surely disappointed by this decision as he thought Chahal is not a like-for-like replacement for Jadeja. Langer had a heated argument with the match referee David Boon between the innings break as Chahal replaced Jadeja.
According to the rules of the International Cricket Council, any player can be subbed out of the match due to concussion and the team can bring a like-for-like replacement for that player. If the player is not a like-for-like replacement, then the match-referee has the power to restrict that player from playing. For example, Rohit Sharma, a proper batsman, gets injured In a T20 match, and India name Hardik Pandya, an all-rounder, as his replacement. The match referee has the power to restrict Hardik Pandya from Bowling.
So, was Yuzvendra Chahal a like-for-like replacement for Ravindra Jadeja? Well, Justin Langer was not completely wrong. Chahal is not-a-like for like replacement for Jadeja. You can consider Jadeja as an all-rounder as he provides you with a bit of batting at Number 6 or Number 7, and he bowls Left-Arm orthodox. On the other hand, Chahal is a leg-break bowler, and he bats at Number 11.
However, it was not completely India’s fault as they did not have any other player on the bench who bowls spin except Chahal. In the end, it was David Boon’s call, and he chose not to restrict Chahal from bowling in the match.
Brief Scores: India 161/7 in 20 overs (KL Rahul 51, Ravindra Jadeja 44*, Moises Henriques 3-22) beat Australia 150/7 (Aaron Finch 35, D Arcy Short 34; Yuzvendra Chahal 3-25, T Natarajan 3-30) by 11 runs.