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New Delhi, India
India defeated Australia by six runs in a warm-up match between the two sides ahead of the start of their T20 World Cup 2022 campaign on Monday (October 17). Mohammed Shami's heroics in the last over saw India defend 11 runs off it as the hosts fell short in the 187-run chase at The Gabba in Brisbane.
Shami, who was initially not a part of India's playing XI for the warm-up match, was called up by skipper Rohit Sharma to bowl the final over during Australia's innings with 11 runs to defend. Shami, who last played a T20I for India during the T20 World Cup last year, delivered an exceptional 20th over as he went on to pick three wickets.
Australia lost as many as four wickets on successive deliveries with Shami scalping three of them. He started off by conceding four runs off the first two deliveries before Cummins tried to go big on the third delivery and was caught by Virat Kohli on the boundary rope at long-on.
Kohli, who was stationed at the boundary rope, pulled off a one-handed screamer to send Cummins packing. It was a low full-toss from Shami which was pummelled by Cummins and the ball looked set to clear the ropes. However, Kohli cut it short on the edge of the boundary and timed his jump to perfection to pluck a stunner with just one hand making the difficult catch look easy.
Also Read: Mohammed Shami's last-over heroics help India beat Australia by 6 runs in warm-up match
Watch Virat Kohli's one-handed blinder at the boundary rope:
After Cummins was caught on the third delivery of the 20th over, Australia lost the plot in the final moments of the run-chase as they ended up losing wickets on each of the remaining three deliveries. Ashton Agar was run-out on the fourth delivery before Shami nailed lethal yorkers to clean up Josh Inglis and Kane Richardson on successive deliveries.
While he was excellent on the field, Kohli didn't have an ideal outing with the bat as he could only manage 19 runs off 13 balls after coming out to bat at no.3 during India's innings. Brilliant fifties from KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav propelled India to a strong total of 186 runs, batting first in the game before the bowlers successfully defended it.
This was Kohli's first full-time appearance in a warm-up game for India ahead of the start of their T20 World Cup campaign in Australia. The senior batter had missed India's first warm-up game against Western Australia XI and only came out to field and didn't bat in the second warm-up against Western Australia XI.