India vs Australia

Aussies in massive T20 'mess' as all-time late collapse sparks major WC concern.

“It’s nice to get a few in the middle. It would have been nice to get us over the line but you can’t win the World Cup in a practice game.” Steve Smith, batting at No.3, couldn’t impress in his final World Cup audition, making a mess of his footwork to Chahal to be bowled out for 11 off 12 balls. The scores won’t count in the official record books given it was only a warm-up match without official T20 international status. Finch played down the collapse after play, saying “you can’t win the World Cup in a practice game”. After taking four runs from the first two balls, Australia lost four wickets in consecutive deliveries to be bowled out on the final delivery of the innings. Australia was earlier 2-145 after 15.2 overs, before it lost Glenn Maxwell (23 off 16) and Marcus Stoinis (7 off 7) in the space of two overs. In total, Australia lost 8-35 in four-and-a-half overs of play to lose to India. Australia has suffered a T20 horror show on the eve of the World Cup, collapsing at the death in ugly fashion to lose to India in its final hitout before the tournament. The hosts appeared to have the warm-up match in the bag with just two overs to go, when Australia was 4-171, needing just 17 more runs to win. Shami didn’t claim a hat-trick given the second wicket was another run-out, but he still snared stunning figures of 3-4 in what was his only over of the match. Australia lost Aaron Finch — who finally returned to form with 76 runs off 54 balls — at the start of the 19th over, and he was immediately followed by the runout Tim David (5) as the nerves crept in.