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Mumbai: Opener Gautam Gambhir?s hurricane half-century and responsible batting by Robin Uthappa and Yuvraj Singh helped Twenty20 world champions India crush the mighty Australians by seven wicket in the first ever Twenty20 Internationals at home at the Brabourne Stadium here on Saturday.
It was indeed a Saturday night fever for the packed stadium at the Cricket Club of India as the Indians went about their task of taming the Kangaroos on a humid night with clinical precision.
Set to get 167 for victory, the hosts never looked in any kind of trouble from the word go as their young brigade marched authoritatively towards the victory to keep their slate clean against the Aussies in this format of the game.
Despite losing Virender Sehwag early, the Indians got to their first fifty in just five overs. The fifth over of the Indian innings, bowled by Brett Lee, yielding as many as 20 runs with the left-right batting combination of Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa, who was caught off a no-ball earlier, going all out to decimate the Australian bowling.
In the very next over the Indian batsmen plundered 18 runs.
Gambhir and Uthappa added 50 runs for the second wicket off just 27 balls, which really set the tone for the run chase by the home team.
After adding 82 runs off 52 balls for the second wicket, Uthappa was caught by Gilchrist off Michael Clarke for a well-made 35 off 26 balls with six hits to the fence.
Gambhir, who played one of the best innings in a Twenty20 match, scored 63 off 52 balls with six fours and a six, before being caught by Ponting off rookie fast bowler Ben Hilfenhaus. He added 41 runs for the third wicket with Yuvraj Singh.
Yuvraj contributed with a fine unbeaten 31 off just 25 balls with a four and three sixes while skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni scored an unbeaten nine off five balls with a single six that got the winning runs for the hosts.
Earlier, Ponting, too, scored a superb half-century after electing to bat.
Indian bowlers, playing their first ever Twenty20 match on their home soil ever, did well to restrict the Australians to just 166 runs after Ponting, first in the company of Matthew Hayden and then with Andrew Symonds, threatened to take his team to a huge score.
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