India beat Australia in the first of the five-match T20I series at the Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam. While it was a tensed finish to a run chase of 209, middle-order batter Rinku Singh looked calm and composed and with 1 needed of 1 for victory, even smashed a six to finish things off in style.
The maximum, however, did not count against his name but his innings nontheless brought him to spotlight at the international stage with it coming against a top-quality world side after having played a few of these impacful knocks already in the IPL and the Asian Games. As it turns, out one of the greatest-ever finishers ever to have played the game MS Dhoni did have a role to play in Rinku being calm and cool in the end.
"It's a good thing that our team won the match. It was the perfect situation for me when I went in to bat. I was feeling good playing alongside Surya bhai (Suryakumar Yadav). I was just thinking about what I've done in the past chasing such scores, and focused on staying as calm as I could and take the game to the final over," Rinku told BCCI.
"I had a talk with Mahi bhai (MS Dhoni) about what he does in the final few overs. He told me that it's important to stay calm and look to hit straight. That's what I follow. I try to stay calm, and hit my shots with low reaction," Rinku added.
Suryakumar Yadav Makes Captaincy Debut With A Win
Suryakumar Yadav played his first international match as a captain and it started off with India chasing down their highest-ever successful chase of 209 to take a 1-0 lead in the series. Suryakumar himself led from the front, scoring 80 off 42 and guiding India to a famous win.