Key events
10th over: India 75-1 (Gill 33, Dube 1) Australia keep the brakes on with a tidy over from Xavier Bartlett. Four runs from it.
9th over: India 71-1 (Gill 32, Dube 8) Dube punishes a loosener from Ben Dwarshuis with a straight cut between point and cover. The boundaries have dried up for Gill since the end of the powerplay but he keeps a pull shot down to pick up two behind the stumps.
8th over: India 62-1 (Gill 29, Dube 2) India’s momentum comes to a grinding halt after Abhishek’s departure as even Gill has trouble getting Stoinis away for anything more than a single.
7th over: India 58-1 (Gill 27, Dube 1) Zampa picks up the critical wicket of Abhishek as Bartlett breathes half a sigh of relief. Shivam Dube joins Gill at the crease.
WICKET! Abhishek Sharma c David b Zampa 28 (India 56-1)
Abhishek crunches Adam Zampa straight down the ground for a monster six. But the Australia leg-spinner gets his revenge just two balls later as Abhishek gets under a slog aimed at long-on and picks out Tim David inside the rope.
6th over: India 49-0 (Abhishek 22, Gill 26) Abhishek ends the powerplay in style by taking a step back and punishing a shorter ball from Marcus Stoinis. The Australia all-rounder had given him a wake up call just a ball earlier with a half-tracker that bounced sharply and caught the opener under the grille. That drop from Xavier Bartlett in the opening over is looking more costly with every Abhishek boundary.
5th over: India 38-0 (Abhishek 13, Gill 24) Xavier Bartlett changes ends but it’s much the same story for the right-arm quick. Abhishek swings wildly but fails to make contact but Gill is making scoring look easy as he clobbers another boundary through midwicket – that’s his fourth from 16 balls without taking any risks.
4th over: India 31-0 (Abhishek 12, Gill 18) Nathan Ellis is the first change after causing India all sorts of problems through this series with six wickets in three matches. But Gill takes a liking to him straight away with a flick off the pads for four. The right-hander picks up two more from much the same stroke then adds another boundary with a crunching straight drive.
3rd over: India 20-0 (Abhishek 12, Gill 7) Shubman Gill has not had the most prolific tour with 100 runs from six innings across both white-ball formats before this game. The right-hander would like a big score here and gets going with a dance down the wicket and chip straight back over Dwarshuis for four.
2nd over: India 13-0 (Abhishek 10, Gill 2) Xavier Bartlett has the opportunity to immediately make amends for the dropped catch but Abhishek only needs a little bit of width to slice the ball over cover off the back foot. That’s the first boundary of the innings. The opener whips a straighter ball down the ground and only barely clears Mitch Marsh at mid-on for an easy three.
1st over: India 3-0 (Abhishek 2, Gill 1) DROPPED! Abhishek Sharma charges the first ball for a swing and a miss then gets under the second trying to launch it out of Gold Coast Stadium. The white ball goes up, up and up into the early evening sky as three Australia fielders run towards the drop zone. Xavier Bartlett gets there first but after a moment of hesitation he grasses the catch. A huge chance goes begging for Australia.
Ben Dwarshuis takes the new ball on his return to the Australia XI with India opener Abhishek Sharma on strike and setting himself to make a trademark blazing start. Here we go …
India XI
Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Tilak Varma, Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah.
Don’t break up a winning combination. India are unchanged from the side that won the third game in the series in Hobart.
Australia XI
Mitchell Marsh (capt), Matt Short, Josh Inglis (wk), Tim David, Josh Philippe, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Xavier Bartlett, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa.
Four changes for Australia as Travis Head and Sean Abbott leave the squad to prepare for the Ashes. Matt Short moves to the top of the order while Glenn Maxwell slots into the middle. Josh Philippe, Ben Dwarshuis and Adam Zampa also come into the XI.
Toss
Mitchell Marsh wins the toss and elects to bowl first on the unfamiliar deck at Gold Coast Stadium. This is just the third men’s international at the venue but Australia are certainly comfortable bowling first no matter where they play.
Suryakumar Yadav says it looks similar to India conditions so they would have batted first even if they had won the toss. The India captain’s eyes are lighting up at what he thinks is a large ground with lots of space to hit the ball into.
Preamble
Martin Pegan
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the fourth T20 international between Australia and India at Gold Coast Stadium in Carrara. The series is all up for grabs after India made it 1-1 with a five-wicket victory in Hobart on Sunday. The opening match was washed out before Australia took an early lead in Melbourne.
While the two rivals will always be out to get one over the other, there is no denying that the series is being overshadowed, at least for the hosts, by the Ashes that begin in little more than two weeks. Australia’s Test squad named yesterday includes Travis Head and Sean Abbott who have now left the T20 group to ramp up preparations for red-ball fixtures, leaving Josh Inglis as the only player to still be in both lineups. Glenn Maxwell is expected to be the player to come in for Head with Matthew Short an option to open.
India have many more players to choose from especially after Washington Sundar steered them to victory in his first game in the series on Sunday, while Nitish Kumar Reddy could return from injury.
First ball will be at 6.15pm in Gold Coast / 7.15pm AEDT / 1.45pm IST. The toss and team news will be coming up shortly. Meanwhile, let us know your thoughts and predictions – shoot me an email or find me @martinpegan on Bluesky or X. Let’s get into it!
