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Join us for live scores, team lineups and commentary of the second Australia vs India Twenty20 match, with Australia looking for another win and India looking for their first win of their tour. The match starts at 7.35 pm AEDT tonight from the MCG in Melbourne
Australia out-batted and out-bowled India in the opening T20I and despite the talk about the young Indian legs making a difference to the side’s fortunes, the visitors lost by a healthy 31 runs.
David Warner exploded early, and with Matthew Wade making a big score, Xavier Doherty and Brad Hogg delivering with the ball, and David Hussey doing everything right in the match, there was enough of a difference to make it comfortable for Australia.
If allowing Australia to get away to 171 was bad enough, the loss of five wickets in the middle overs for 34 runs meant that India were left to do too much towards the end of the game.
Only Gautam Gambhir for a short period and MS Dhoni – when it was far too late – showed a semblance of fighting spirit, but 172 was never going to be an easy chase.
What would have surprised both the fans and the players alike will be the capitulation of the Indian batsmen to slow bowling. Hussey, Doherty and Hogg bowled 10 overs and finished with combined figures of 3/48 – impressive even at Test level let alone a Twenty20.
At the MCG, Australia may want to go in with an extra pace bowler and one of Hogg or Doherty could be given the axe.
Similarly, India will look at their bowling attack more closely and may well want to play an extra pacer. With Suresh Raina, Virender Sehwag and Rohit Sharma expected to roll their arm over, carrying two main spinners in R Ashwin and Rahul Sharma seems to be a bit of a luxury on the quicker Australian tracks.
Umesh Yadav could get a game in place of Sharma.
I expect a far closer game this one with a possibility of the match going down to the wire but the home team to still come home unscathed.
We will bring you the coverage throughout second T20I from Melbourne and hope to receive your opinions as the action unfolds.
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