For the first time in this Champions Trophy, one could see India under pressure. In each of their three outings before this semi-final, they have been precise in their planning and the execution in the middle has been mostly fool-proof.
But on Tuesday, for a large part of the afternoon, Steve Smith and Alex Carey would keep Rohit Sharma and India under the pump with some quality batting in yet another testing environment. The two put together only a 54-run stand, off just 58 deliveries, but with scores of 73 and 61 respectively powered Australia to 264 – the highest total made till in the Dubai leg.
For the fourth straight match here, a new surface was put to use. Though India have by now got familiar with conditions here, pitch No.6 that they used for the semi-final, seemed to have sowed a few doubts in them. While the square has remained dry throughout, out of all the 9 pitches, this was one that had some presence of live grass.
After their match against New Zealand, Rohit said they were not even aware which pitch they would be playing on Tuesday. When they came here in the afternoon, he would spend more time than he usually does inspecting the pitch. Maybe, the idea was to just bluff the Aussies, but Harshit Rana would go on a warm-up lap in the company of Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.
As India lost the 14th straight toss in ODIs and Smith opted to bat first, Rohit claimed that this was a good one to lose as they were unsure what was the preferable course of action.
For a change, India were in unfamiliar territory as to what to expect. They didn’t waste any time in dismissing Cooper Connolly, which brought Smith to the middle. From there on, Australia would go about pushing India on the backfoot. Before coming here, they had played just one completed match in Pakistan, and had just a couple of net sessions. But they seemed to have done their homework as they went in search of boundaries in the first Powerplay with Travis Head providing a typical quickfire start at the top, while riding on his luck as usual.
The 33-ball 38 from the left-hander set the tone, but Smith was equally good with his intent. He got just two boundaries in the first Powerplay, and despite losing Head, in the company of Marnus Labuchagne, kept the run rate above five, something India wasn’t used to so far in this campaign.
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Class act
Right through his 96-ball stay, the quality of Smith’s batsmanship stood out with a bit of luck smiling at him as well. At 13, he saw the ball roll back on to the stumps but the impact didn’t dislodge the bails. At 36, Mohammed Shami would drop a return catch.
That aside, despite playing his first game here, he knew what shots worked on this surface and, more importantly, which ones to avoid. The sweeps, which he uses to good effect against spinners, were totally absent. Instead, he would use his feet to hit straight and play the horizontal-bat shots only if the delivery merited.
India had to alter their plans, and push mid-on and mid-off fielders to the boundary. When they did so, it opened up other pockets in the field for Smith to work the gaps.
Smith saved his best for Varun Chakaravarthy, whose mystery India were counting on to provide them the edge. As the number of dot balls reduced, it was evident that Varun would have to come up with something exceptional to break Australia. However, Smith was ready for it, scoring 22 from the 24 deliveries he faced of him, hitting two boundaries that left Rohit exasperated. Without taking any risks on this pitch, Smith had India on the mat before he missed a Shami full-toss that dipped on him and hit the off-stump when he charged down the track. Those 73 were worth a lot more.
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If Smith was all class, Carey brought about a bit of unpredictability. From the moment he came in, India were waiting for the left-hander to bring out his sweeps and reverse-sweeps, which he has been effective with. He wouldn’t disappoint, sweeping a wayward Kuldeep Yadav for his second boundary in the first 10 deliveries he faced.
On pitches where batsmen have struggled for timing, Carey was an exception. When Varun came for another spell, he would slog-sweep him for a six, but once India began to protect the square boundaries, the left-hander showed he had more shots in his repertoire. He would make room and hit Kuldeep over mid-on before playing an inside-out shot that fetched him another boundary.
With Smith playing the anchor role, off the first 36 deliveries Carey faced, he picked up six boundaries and a six. Though he hung around till the 48th over, he hit just two more boundaries as the wickets of Smith and Glenn Maxwell took the steam out of Australia.
