The T20 series being played between India and Australia has come to a very exciting turn. Australia won the first T20 wildcard of the series and Team India won the second T20. Now the third T20 between the two teams will be played in Hyderabad tomorrow, that is, on Sunday. As captain, Rohit Sharma will have a chance to win a ninth successive series, while Australia are poised to become the first team to beat India for the second time at home. Both teams have a good chance to do something. However, for this the Hyderabad climate will have to be kind to him.
Left arm spinner Axar Patel, who was included in the playing XI following Ravindra Jadeja’s injury, is proving his worth and is slowly becoming the leading spinner of the Indian T20 team. He has played cheap bowling in this series, mostly hunting on the power play. His specialty is that he can pitch anytime in the innings and his international running economy is only 7.1.
With his round of the wicket angle, he is of great concern to right-handed batsmen. In his Indian career against right-handed batsmen, Akshar has spent 21 wickets in an economy of 6.2. There is no other left-handed batsman in the Australian team other than Matthew Wade and in such a situation Bapu has a good chance to increase wickets from him. While pitching stump to stump, Axar has taken four of five wickets in this series as pitched.
T20 cricket superstar Glenn Maxwell is known for his aggressive batting in leagues around the world. However, his performance in T20 International cricket has been going downhill since 2020. Where he has averaged less than 20 with the bat in the last two years, this year he is scoring runs at an average of 21.8. Not only this, he has a strike rate of 129, which is the lowest strike rate of his in a year since 2013.
Since 2020, Maxwell has batted in 27 innings and has crossed the 20-run mark just eight times. The worrying thing is that on 14 occasions he has not been able to reach even double digits. Maxwell, who has made his mark as a spin hitter, has struggled against spin and been out against spin 13 times in the last three years. If this continues, Australia will find it difficult to defend the T20 World Cup.
Despite scoring low in two matches in this series, this year has been a good one for Virat Kohli. At T20 Internationals this year, Kohli scored 370 runs with a strike rate of 141 with the help of three half-centuries and a century. Kohli, who scored a career-high 731 runs in 20 innings against Australia, loves scoring runs in the decisive third game of the series.
In the six decisive games of the series, Kohli has scored 289 runs with an average of 89.7 and a strike rate of 167. Not only that, in the last three decisive games he has been undefeated at the bat for half a century and would like to continue this streak in Hyderabad.