Mumbai, Feb 7 – Suryakumar Yadav and Mohammed Siraj led a scrappy 29-run win for India against the United States of America, despite a stunning collapse in the opening encounter of the T20 World Cup here on Saturday.
Suryakumar, a veteran of many battles at the Wankhede Stadium, scored an unbeaten 84 off 49 balls, combining a fine rescue effort with a defiant counter-attack against a USA attack that proved to be no match for him.
Indian captain Suryakumar utilized his experience to guide his team to victory, even after they were reduced to 6 for 77 in the first innings.
However, Suryakumar's late onslaught, with 10 fours and four sixes, propelled India to 161/9 after they had been precariously placed at 128/7 after 18 overs.
USA, in reply, finished at 132/8, a weak response, especially compared to their first-innings performance where they restricted the high-flying Indians.
Siraj, who joined the team late on Friday evening, bowled a fuller, more Test-match length to take two wickets in his opening spell and finished with 3/29 in 4 overs.
After USA had reached 13/3 within the fourth over, they never recovered.
USA's fight petered out as Siraj dismissed openers Andries Gous (6) and Saiteja Mukkamalla (2), and Arshdeep Singh (2/18) got rid of captain Monank Patel for a duck.
From 13/3 in the fourth over, USA stitched multiple partnerships but never regained control. Milind Kumar (34), Sanjay Krishnamurthi (37), and Shubham Ranjane (37) played useful knocks, but it wasn't enough to secure a win.
None of them could dominate the innings, and once Varun Chakravarthy (1/24) and Axar Patel (2/24) took control in the post-Powerplay overs, giving away only 48 runs and taking three wickets in those eight overs.
Earlier, Suryakumar played a brilliant 49-ball innings, single-handedly driving India out of a difficult situation after a stunning collapse saw them reduced to 77/6 in the 13th over.
Shadley van Schalkwyk returned with figures of 4-0-25-4 as India's batting line-up, barring Suryakumar, endured a tough outing.
The writing was on the wall when India failed to find a run in the first four balls of the innings, with USA making it difficult for Indian batters to free their arms.
While Ishan Kishan (20) smacked a six off the fifth ball, Abhishek Sharma fell for a first-ball duck in the second over.
Abhishek hit Ali Khan's delivery straight to Sanjay Krishnamurthi at deep cover, and the Wankhede Stadium fell silent.
The fielding, set by US skipper Monank, was top-notch.
Tilak Varma (25) broke the shackles when he danced down to hit a straight off Saurabh Netravalkar (0/65) in the third over and went after van Schalkwyk for three fours in the next.
However, Ishan, having smacked Ali off his pads for a spectacular six, failed to make the most of a dropped catch and hit one straight to mid-on off van Schalkwyk on the first ball of the sixth over.
Van Schalkwyk couldn't believe his luck when Tilak failed to time a pull off a short ball, giving catching practice to USA captain Monank Patel.
Shivam Dube (0) is no stranger to the Wankhede wicket, but the burly all-rounder was totally outfoxed by a slow bouncer, failing to check his stroke.
Looking completely clueless, Dube was caught in an awkward approach during the time of connection, with the ball flying to Netravalkar at short fine leg.
Rinku Singh (6 off 14 balls) couldn't control his first attacking stroke, which went straight to long-on off Mohammad Mohsin (4-0-16-1). Hardik Pandya (5) fell to former Mumbai left-arm spinner Harmeet Singh (4-0-26-2), while trying to clear the sweeper cover, and Axar Patel (14) in his bid to get some late quick runs.
With the onus of getting India out of trouble once again solely on him, Suryakumar dug in deep to farm the strike and rarely missed connecting on the shots that have been his trademark.
Being the only Indian batter to have understood the nature of the wicket completely, Suryakumar opened up finally in the last two overs. He collected 34 runs off those, which included 21 in the last from Netravalkar.