The first-ever Twenty20 International on Indian soil promises plenty of fireworks as Mahendra Singh Dhoni's world champions cross swords with Australia in what promises to be a humdinger at the Brabourne Stadium on Saturday.Ricky Ponting admitted that his team was looking forward, quite keenly, to the Twenty20 match against the ICC World Twenty20 champions. Ponting also conceded that it was difficult to plan too much for a Twenty20 match.
Both teams have a lot to prove in the one-off contest that is expected to draw a full house at the flood-lit Cricket Club of India. Dhoni and his team-mates would be eager to show that their against-the-odds triumph in the inaugural World T20 championship in South Africa, including their semi-final win over 50-over champions Australia, was no flash in the pan.
But the visitors have put the rare defeat to India behind them and played some top-quality cricket to clinch the best-of-seven ODI series before floundering in the last tie at nearby Wankhede Stadium two days ago. "We are pretty excited actually and looking forward to the match against a team which won the World Cup (Twenty20) a few weeks ago," said Ponting at a pre-match press conference. He also sought to underplay the hype surrounding the game, just as he hoped the tired debate over verbal volleys would die down.
India, on the other hand, would not have their trio of senior batsmen - Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid - as well as pace spearhead Zaheer Khan to fall back on.
The home team will be looking up to Virender Sehwag and fit-again Gautam Gambhir to fire them on in the initial stages for the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Dhoni, and Robin Uthappa to capitalise on later.
Come back for the live action at 13:30 GMT, 19:00 IST and 06:30 PST from the
Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.
Njoi...
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