India has been left frustrated after rain washed out the men’s T20I series opener against Australia at a cold and dreary Manuka Oval.<\/p>\n
The visitors got off to a strong start, surging to 1-97 off 9.4 overs when the heavens opened in Canberra on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
The match had already been shortened to 18 overs apiece after a 45-minute stoppage earlier in the innings.<\/p>\n
After being sent in by Australia captain Mitch Marsh, India’s openers raced to 35 off 3.5 overs before Abhishek Sharma (16) mistimed a wild drive off the bowling of Nathan Ellis to Tim David at mid-off.<\/p>\n
A 62-run partnership between captain Suryakumar Yadav (39 not out) and opener Shubman Gill (37no) had India in a commanding position as the innings passed its midway point.<\/p>\n
Australia should have dismissed Suryakumar for 20 after he spooned a straight drive above mid-on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fans wait as rain delays play during the First Men\u2019s T20I cricket match between Australia and India. (AAP: Lukas Coch)<\/p>\n
But wicket-keeper Josh Philippe \u2014 brought into the national side for the first time in two years as a specialist batter \u2014 failed to clasp a challenging catch with the ball dropping over his shoulder as he ran back towards the boundary.<\/p>\n
Suryakumar made Australia pay two overs later, smashing Ellis for two fours and a six off before the return of the rain sent the players and umpires running for cover for good.<\/p>\n
A sold-out crowd of mostly India fans were denied the sight of fast bowling superstar Jasprit Bumrah, while Marsh was unable to press his outside hopes of an Ashes call-up, as Australia selectors mull who will partner Usman Khawaja at the top of the order.<\/p>\n
Australia was full of confidence after winning the three-match ODI series between the two sides 2-1, but faces a tough prospect of claiming victory in the remaining four matches against the reigning T20 world champions.<\/p>\n
The teams will hope the weather will be more obliging for the second match of the series at the MCG on Friday.<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India has been left frustrated after rain washed out the men’s T20I series opener against Australia at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,2667,740,1209,76302,85,23287,24687,47567],"class_list":{"0":"post-251853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-canberra","11":"tag-cricket","12":"tag-india","13":"tag-manuka-oval","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-t20","16":"tag-t20i","17":"tag-twenty20"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}