WT20: Yuvraj, Ashwin steer India to 73-run win against Australia

Mirpur: Superb batting from Yuvraj Singh (60 off 43 balls) followed by some fantastic bowling from R Ashwin (4 for 11) helped India beat Australia by 73 runs and top the group ahead of the ICC World T20 semi-finals here on Sunday.

Batting first, India scored 159 for seven with Yuvraj Singh emerging as their top batsman, making 60 off 43 balls. On a slow track, Yuvraj, who was desperately looking to get back to his form, blasted four sixes and five boundaries.

Indian bowlers then came out good by dismissing the Aussies for a meagre 86 in 16.2 overs as Ravichandran Ashwin registered dominating figures of 3.2-0-11-4.

Ashwin got the first breakthrough when Finch tried to slog him and Kohli took a simple catch at mid-on. Cameron White (0) looked distinctly short of match practice as he miscued while trying to drive Bhuvneshwar Kumar on the up and Ravindra Jadeja judged it well running backwards from his mid-on position.

Young Mohit Sharma, who was playing his first match in place of Mohammed Shami, then bowled through Shane Watson (1)’s defence. Warner’s slog sweep off Ashwin was taken brilliantly by Rohit Sharma running forward from his deep mid-wicket boundary position.
It was 44 for four and the match was sealed when Maxwell tried a reversesweep off Ashwin to get bowled.