Rolton leads Australia rout

Australia captain Karen Rolton showed her class with 44 off 23 deliveries

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A dazzling innings from captain Karen Rolton guided Australia to a narrow two-run win over India in their Twenty20 International at Hurstville Oval in Sydney.

Player-of-the-match Rolton smashed 44 from 23 balls, including eight boundaries, as the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars (Australia) claimed the first Twenty20 International between the teams.

In reply to Australia’s total of 142 for four, India steadily built their innings and needed six off the final ball to tie, but Mithali Raj could only manage a boundary to give the home team a hard-fought win.

Raj top-scored for India with 51 from 45 balls and was well-supported by Sulakshana Naik (32) and Jhulan Goswami (27 not out) as India mounted a spirited run chase.

After being sent into bat, the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars posted a competitive total after some clean hitting from Rolton in the final two overs.

Nitschke (49 from 40) was the other main contributor with the bat despite suffering a thigh injury early in her innings. Nitschke batted with the aid of a runner to top score for the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars, with four boundaries and two sixes.

With the visitors struggling at 11 for two in the third over of their run-chase, the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars limited India’s scoring options and pushed the required run-rate quickly past nine an over.

Although they appeared out of the match, Raj and India captain Goswami dragged their team back into contention in the final eight overs with an unbroken 60-run partnership that ended just short of the target needed.

“Quite a few Twenty20 games are very tight and it seems to be the nature of the game that results finish up that way. They got a run-on late in their innings but I thought we protected the boundaries well at the end,” Rolton said.

“It was good batting performance to post the score we did. We were a bowler down due to Shelley Nitschke’s injury which made it difficult, but it was good experience heading into the first one-day match on Friday.

“We hadn’t seen a couple of their spin bowlers before today so it was good to have a look at them and gather some more information before the one-day series starts.”