Melbourne, Oct 31 (IANS) India captain Suryakumar Yadav praised Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood for his three-fer and lauded teammate Abhishek Sharma’s batting display following the visitors’ four-wicket defeat in the second T20I at a sell-out Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.

Inserted into batting first, India’s innings never quite recovered from a top-order collapse triggered by Hazlewood, whose sensational spell of 3-13 ensured the visitors were four down in the Power-play. He extracted seam movement and bounce with precision, while maintaining a probing length that consistently challenged the Indian batters.

Despite a counter-attacking effort of 68 from Abhishek, India failed to regain momentum as they were bowled out for 125 in 18.4 overs, which Australia chased down with 40 balls remaining. “Absolutely – the way he bowled in the powerplay, if you’re four down in the Power-play it’s difficult to recover from that. Credit goes to him, Well bowled to him, he bowled really well,” he said.

“Abhishek has been doing this for quite some time now. He knows his game, knows his identity, and it’s good he’s not changing it – that’s what’s brought him success. Hopefully, he sticks with it and plays many more knocks like this for us,” said Suryakumar in the post-match presentation ceremony.

Looking ahead to the remainder of the five-match series, with the third game to be held in Hobart on November 2, Suryakumar stressed the importance of going aggressive from the word go with the bat, something which has served India very well in the past.

“We need to do the same thing that we did in the first game – bat really well if we’re batting first, put nice runs on the board, and then come out and defend,” he added.

–IANS

nr/bsk/