India beat Australia by 20 runs in the fourth T20I at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium in Raipur on Friday (December 1) to clinch the five-match series with a match to go. While the series was poised at 2-1 in favour of India heading into the fourth match, the result means they have now taken an unassailable lead in the series. Australia invited India to bat first who made 174/9 in their 20 overs. While there were concerns of dew coming in the latter half of the innings, Indian spinners bowled exceedingly well and eventually helped Men in Blue come out on top as they restricted the Kangaroos to 154/7.
Australia had gotten off to a flying start with Travis Head playing the role of the aggressor. However, it was the Indian spinners who helped them make a comeback with Axar Patel being the pick of the bowlers with wickets of 3/16. Ravi Bishnoi too was exceptional, picking 1 for 17. The spinners bowling well in tandem meant Australia who were 40/0 in 3 overs were reduced to 52/3 in 6.3 overs before Axar returned to dismiss Ben McDermott in the 12th over.
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For India, the openers did impress with scores of 37 off 28 and 32 off 28 for Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad respectively. However, it was really the innings of Rinku Singh (46 off 29) and Jitesh Sharma (35 off 19) that propelled the team to a fighting total despite a flurry of wickets towards the end. With the ball, Australia's Ben Dwarshuis picked 3 wickets for 40 runs while Jason Behrendorff and Tanveer Sangha picied two wickets each. Aaron Hardie was the other wicket-taker.
In the run-chase, Head looked threatening with 31 off 16 while Matthew Wade scored 36 off 23 and remained unbeaten but it wasn't enough on the day for Australia to overcome India's total. The final match of the series will be played in Bengaluru.