Mumbai beat the world champions after Australia set themselves a revised target of 300 runs.
MUMBAI: Adam Gilchrist refused to admit the team’s failing against spin, but it was there for everyone to see at the MIG Club on Sunday.
The likes of Shahid Afridi, Muttiah Muralitharan and Harbhajan Singh will be highly favoured to upset the Australian applecart in the mini-World Cup going by a stuttering Australian batting line-up that Gilchrist believed had a good hit in the park.
A youngster, Aniket Redkar and a veteran, Nilesh Kulkarni, spun Mumbai to a seven-run win over Australia as Ricky Ponting’s team were game enough to raise the stakes after restricting Mumbai to 218 for eight in the final practice game of Champions Trophy at the MIG Club ground.
Australia decided to chase a revised target of 300 after asking Mumbai to only send out their batsmen when they decided to bowl in the morning. Rohit Sharma, who made 7 batting at No.4, took full advantage of practice as he came back late down the order to smash 41 off just 19 balls as Mumbai accelerated scoring 59 runs in the last five overs after being bogged down at 91 for six at one stage.
For Australia, the boost was at the beginning of the innings as Gilchrist had 11 boundaries as he pulled and cut his way to a half-century. Shane Watson, the all-rounder, kept pace up with Gilchrist before spin was introduced in the 12th over of the innings.
Seasoned left-arm spinner Kulkarni castled Gilchrist the very next ball after the wicket-keeper batsman had smashed the left-arm spinner over the sightscreen for a six. Watson, who tried to work the ball behind the stumps, was then bowled around his legs.
Young off-spinner Redkar had both captain Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn in all sorts of trouble as the Australian innings came almost screeching to a halt.
Between the 12th over up to the 23rd over when Kulkarni and Redkar bowled in tandem, Australia managed only 29 runs and lost two wickets even as the timely use of Powerplay resulted in a rather barren spell for the batsmen.
Of the nine Australian wickets that fell, eight were scalped by the spinners as Kulkarni picked up five wickets. Redker would have got a breakthrough faster if only wicket-keeper Vinayak Samant was spot on.
Redkar, who took the wickets of New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming and Nathan Astle during the practice game against New Zealand, trapped Andrew Symonds, who was threatening to run away with the game in the death overs and then allowed Samant to redeem himself when Michael Clarke was beaten all ends up.
Redkar is yet to play a first class game for Mumbai, but has been on the Under-22 circuit for the last couple of seasons. The off-spinner said: “I just wanted to bowl dot balls. That was my aim and it turned out to be a great day. Enjoyed taking the wickets of Symonds and Clarke,” Redkar said.
Brett Lee bowled nine no-balls and Glenn McGrath didn’t look at his best. Watson picked up three wickets. Australia were looking to extract as much practice as possible for this game and it maybe foolhardy reading into their loss in chase of an inflated target. But the jarring notes cannot be ignored.
Brief Scores
Mumbai: 218 for 8 in 50 overs (Nishit Shetty 32, Praful Waghela 33, Abhishek Nair 40 n.o., Rohit Sharma 7 and 41 not out by batting twice; B Lee 2-32, Watson 3-42, Hogg 2-27)
Australia (self-imposed target 300): 292 for 9 in 50 overs (Adam Gilchrist 61, Shane Watson 34, Ricky Ponting 55, Damien Martyn 54, Andrew Symonds 35; Aniket Redkar 2-43, Nilesh Kulkarni 5-43).
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