India's young bowling attack was hammered by centurion Josh Inglis, taking Australia to a dominant 208/3 in Visakhapatnam on Thursday.
New skipper Suryakumar Yadav's decision to bowl first on a batting featherbed turned out to be a nightmare for the inexperienced bowling unit in the first T20I. En route to his 50-ball 110, Inglis hit as many as eight sixes -- half a dozen of them off googly bowler Ravi Bishnoi.
The century, his first across international formats, came off 47 balls and there were 11 boundaries as well, including an audacious reverse sweep and and an arrogant slash over point off pacer Arshdeep Singh (0/41 in 4 overs). Only Mukesh Kumar (0/29 in 4 overs) held his own amid onslaught from both ends.
The stockily built keeper-batter, brimming with confidence of an altogether different level, took a special liking for Bishnoi (1/54 in 4 overs), who for the first time looked exposed due to his one-dimensional skill-set of consistently bowling fast googlies, with an occasional straighter one slipped in between.
Inglis had the seasoned Steve Smith (52 off 41 balls) for company as the former skipper kept nudging and pushing apart from his eight boundaries in a stand of 130, dominated by the junior partner.
Prasidh Krishna (1/50 in 4 overs), who travelled around with the World Cup squad for a month, clearly didn't find any rhythm as it was Smith, who first creamed him for successive boundaries and then when his end was changed by Suryakumar, the fate didn't change as he was hit for three fours and a six by Inglis, who went on a rampage.
In fact, it was Bishnoi who drew the first blood getting Matthew Short cleaned up with a straighter one but then Inglis devised a plan that worked wonderfully well for him.
Knowing that Bishnoi primarily bowls fast googlies or just pushes one with the angle, he just moved away from stumps, hitting him over extra cover, leave aside pulling those half-trackers into the mid-wicket stands.
There were slog sweeps to fuller deliveries and Bishnoi looked out of sorts on a day when Yuzvendra Chahal, smarting after an unceremonious omission from T20I squad, took six wickets for Haryana in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the national one-day championship.
Having been used to a stellar bowling show through the better part of the World Cup, the pasting that this second-string attack received from Australia must have shaken the likes of Bishnoi and Krishna, both of whom had 'half-centuries' to their names, albeit of a different kind.
