Shami defeats Australia in the warm-up game.

India’s last T20 World Cup campaign got off to the best possible start with a six-run victory against Australia after the hosts lost four wickets in the game’s penultimate over, which signaled Mohammed Shami’s incredible recovery after playing his last T20I nearly a year before.

In the 1950s by KL India struggled in the middle overs before trying five different bowlers in the opening five overs, but Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav helped India to a solid 186/7 total despite the setback. Thanks to captain Aaron Finch’s 54-ball 76, Australia was in front of the chase. In the last over, when the score was tied at 11, Rohit Sharma made the brilliant decision to call Shami from the bench. Here are the key lessons learned from the victory.

Closing clicks

Rohit didn’t start his innings until the fifth over, but India wasn’t upset since Rahul went head-to-head, hogging the strike in the opening four overs. After warming up with a powerful drive off Mitchell Starc in the first over, Rahul carted Pat Cummins for six and four runs before focusing on Marcus Stoinis. Rahul pulled Stoinis over midwicket for four runs, made a dent in the sightscreen with a six, brilliantly hooked him towards fine leg for four runs, and finished that fourth-over carnage with a pulled four. As India sped to 69/0 in the Powerplay, Rohit hardly needed to bat.

Surya in his prime

There are several forms, including Surya’s perfect form. Yadav took six balls to attempt the aerial approach with Virat Kohli comfortably positioned at the other end, but he miscued it, causing the ball to narrowly miss Steve Smith at long-on. Yadav didn’t let that stop him from opening up angles to find boundaries before hitting Cummins over long-on for six. These angles included wide of point, shuffling across to heave the ball towards long-on, reverse sweeping, and flicking the ball over short fine-leg. But the strangest thing happened when an attempted flick hit the bat’s bottom and was tossed back to bowler Kane Richardson.

Shami is unnerved.

With England’s match against Pakistan coming up, Shami was serving drinks to the batsmen and conversing with all-rounder Moeen Ali, giving off the impression that he would be sitting out the contest. Rohit had other plans. Having to defend 10 runs off the last over, Shami let up four runs off the first two deliveries before Kohli took Cummins out with a spectacular one-handed catch in the deep. The next ball, Shami ran Ashton Agar out. Two yorkers were thrown, the first knocking Josh Inglis’ stumps lose as he was on the verge of collapsing, and the second clearing up Richardson’s off-stump. Jasprit Bumrah wasn’t there, yet he wasn’t missed.

Rohit subsequently said, “This was always the intention. “Honestly, he’s returning after a while. Consequently, we just intended to offer him an over. This was always the intended course of action. At the conclusion, he enters and bowls. We know how lethal he can be with the new ball. We just wanted to give him a little bit of a challenge, coming and bowling that death over and we saw what it was.”