Twenty20 match vs Aus: India all out for 74

Agencies

Posted online: Friday, February 01, 2008 at 1445 hrs IST

Melbourne, February 1:
Electing to bat, India were all out for 74 in the Twenty20 international against Australia at Melbourne Cricket ground on Friday.

World champions India batted horribly and were 32 for 5 at one stage, and just three fours hit in their innings convey the total domination which the hosts exercised over them.

India just about avoided scoring the lowest score ever witnessed in a Twenty20 game, just marginally ahead of the 73 which Kenya scored against New Zealand in the Twenty20 world cup in South Africa last year.

Young Indian batsmen played school boyish cricket to disappoint over 90,000 cricket fans who had gathered in expectations of a keen contest.

Batsmen after batsmen hit uppishly in the air and tried to take on fielders leading to their dismissals.

Sehwag (0) ran himself out off a direct hit. Gautam Gambhir (9) and Robin Uthappa (1) tried to hit over the top and succeeded in going only as far as the mid-off while skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (9) and Praveen Kumar (6) picked fielders in the deep for a sorry end to their innings.

Dinesh Karthik (8) made room to slash a high full toss from Lee and Rohit Sharma went to pull a delivery hardly short as their rattled timbers made a sorry sight.

The best stand of the innings was of 17 runs between top scorer Irfan Pathan (26) and Dhoni for the sixth wicket.

Pathan alone redeemed himself in this terrible display in the middle, striking 26 balls from 30 balls.

Australia tried six bowlers and all of them were among wickets with Adam Voges, the slow left-arm bowler playing his second international, once taking two wickets off successive balls.

Brief Scores: India 74 all out in 17.3 overs (Irfan Pathan 26; Nathan Bracken 3-11, Adam Voges 2-5)