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For a moment, it looked like India had left their charge too late. They had let the run rate drift and needed 43 from 19 balls on a slow pitch which had hampered big hitting all night.
The previous 33 overs in the match had seen a dawdling run rate of just 6.8 runs per over, now India needed to score at double that rate under pressure in a knockout match.
That is a gigantic task for regular international cricketers. For Virat Kohli, though, it’s elementary. The Indian superstar has a gobsmacking record in T20Is, with 1552 runs at an average of 55 and 15 half-centuries from just 39 innings.
He has toyed with Australia in this format, cracking 401 runs at 67. But the stat which is most relevant, when assessing Kohli’s extraordinary match-winning exploits, is his average of 92 when India are chasing.
At the other end last night, as India surged into the semi-finals, was MS Dhoni, the man who was the best limited-overs finisher in the world before Kohli built upon his template.
While Kohli was the centre of attention due to his sublime 82* from 51 balls, Dhoni coolly clattered 18* from nine balls. When the equation ballooned out to 43 from 19 balls for an Indian victory, Dhoni kickstarted India’s blitzkrieg, slashing Shane Watson to the third man boundary for four.
Watson had been wonderful with the ball to that point, taking 2-19 from 3.5 overs. The retiring all-rounder handed the ball over to James Faulkner, Australia’s specialist death bowler.
In the previous match against Pakistan, Faulkner had closed out the game calmly and skillfully, befuddling the batsmen with his changes of pace.
He had started well in this knockout clash against India taking 1-13 from his first two overs. But the Indian batsmen have seen a lot of Faulkner and his slower balls in the Indian Premier League – he no longer holds any mystery to them.
Faulkner’s crafty left-arm seamers cut a swathe through the IPL early in his career. In his first 19 IPL matches, Faulkner grabbed 32 wickets at 16.
Then batsmen started to predict his back-of-the-hand slower ball and the Australian lost his edge. As a result, his last 26 IPL matches have seen Faulkner snare just 19 wickets at the awful average of 45.
The Indian batsmen know to play for his slower ball and wait back in the crease, looking for chances to smash his change-ups off the back foot. No one does this better than Kohli, who seems to have complete control over Faulkner.
To start the 18th over at Mohali, Kohli blasted Faulkner for four, four, and six. In the flash of a blade, the equation went from a very difficult 39 runs from 18 balls to a comparative doddle at 25 from 15.
Kohli had broken the chase – he knew it, Dhoni knew it and the body language of the Australians hinted they were not in the dark either. Suddenly it was Australia who needed the miracle to win.
It was not forthcoming as Kohli then rounded on Nathan Coulter-Nile, dispatching him to the boundary four times in the space of five balls.
Kohli’s last 32 runs came from just 11 balls, yet there was no heaving, no luck, no rush. He simply unfurled classical cricket shots imbued with T20 dynamism.
When he is in this mode, Australia have only one bowler capable of stopping Kohli and he was nowhere to be seen.
The moment Mitchell Starc went down injured, Australia’s chances of winning this World Cup nosedived spectacularly. Without the world’s best limited-overs bowler, the Australian attack lacked a cutting edge.
But even with Starc on the field, Australia have never been an elite T20 side. They had an outside chance of winning this tournament just because that is the nature of T20 – the compressed format makes for unpredictable results.
On Sunday, however, they were bossed by the man who has become arguably the best limited-overs batsman on the planet. Kohli mauled Australia and may yet carry India on his own back to a World T20 triumph.