Australia v India: second Twenty20 international – live!

Khaleel continues with his left-arm over the wicket fast-medium. Lynn has the adrenaline pumping now after that previous over and the scene has the feel of a baseball set-piece with the batter trying to slog every delivery and the bowler mixing up his variations to disrupt his timing. It’s a lovely duel with the bowler beating the bat a couple of times wide and full outside off but Lynn responding with a clubbed four. The honours go to Khaleel eventually though, Lynn unable to restrain himself, aiming a sliced drive to another wide delivery but it’s caught by the cover sweeper running in.

3rd over: Australia 19-1 (Short 10, Lynn 7) Huge let-off for Short, Pant shelling a diving catch in front of first slip following another beauty from Kumar that drew a regulation outside edge. Then a huge let-off for Lynn! Six dot-balls were enough for the big Queenslander, sending the seventh high towards fine-leg but Bumrah makes an absolute horlicks of what should have been a regulation take on the boundary. Instead of pointing his palms upward near his chest and accepting the adulation of a majority-Indian crowd he creeps inside the rope, mistimes a jump and palms over a six.

2nd over: Australia 9-1 (Short 7, Lynn 0) Khaleel is on that same length as Kumar for a couple of deliveries but then floats one up a tad fuller that Short takes advantage of, pounding a straight drive for four. The next three are an overcorrection short enabling Australia to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

“To be pedantic,” which is my absolute preferred opening to an email, “this is the first Australian international cricket match of the day, the day being Friday 23/11 – the Women’s game was held on Thursday 22/11,” reports Julian Johnson. I could have sworn I was in front of my TV earlier today watching that game. Never mind…

1st over: Australia 2-1 (Short 1, Lynn 0) All about length for Kumar in a superb opening over. He was too short to drive, too full to pull or cut, and his ability to make the white Kookaburra nibble off the seam kept Australia’s top three on their toes.

Finch goes second ball (his first) reaching for a good length delivery wide offside off stump and sending a regulation edge through to the keeper. That was wide enough to go after but it kissed the deck and skipped away a fraction off the seam.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar with the ball. D’Arcy Short on strike. Remarkably, play will begin on time.

The teams are making their way onto the MCG. India in all blue with plenty of layers adding some core bulk to a few of them. For Australia D’Arcy Short and Aaron Finch are in their predominately black outfit with flashes of yellow and green.

As an indication both of how wet it’s been today in Melbourne and how extraordinarily the MCG drains away water, tomorrow’s grade cricket matches have already been called off.

Hashtag getthebeersin.

Another cricketing talking point this week came in the form of Australia’s 14-man squad announcement for the opening Test of the summer. It was a big deal for Victoria with Marcus Harris and Chris Tremain gaining recognition for their consistent form over a number of seasons, and there was a recall for state captain Peter Handscomb.

This is the second Australian international cricket match of the day and Australia’s men will be hoping to emulate the women’s team who earlier cruised to the final of the World T20 with a comprehensive victory over West Indies. The Southern Stars will meet old enemies England in the decider.

This is always more fun if you contribute so get sending those tweets (to @JPHowcroft) and emails (to [email protected]) about anything you wish. It would make sense to keep your missives cricket related, but if there’s anything on your mind you just want to share, send it this way.

Twenty minutes until the scheduled start and a shower blows across the MCG. The hessian is being dragged over the strip but the remainder of the square remains uncovered.

The MCC is still hopeful of a crowd in excess of 50,000 despite the inhospitable conditions. More than 60,000 tickets have apparently been sold with initial projections of a crowd upwards of 70,000 on a dry night.

India are unchanged. “We just need to do the little things better,” said Virat Kohli about what this eleven needs to do differently tonight compared to the Gabba.

One change for Australia with Billy Stanlake rolling his ankle during the warm-ups and Nathan Coulter-Nile taking his place. Replays of the incident show the big quick landing awkwardly on the boundary rope during a fielding drill.

What is with cricketers injuring themselves in warm-ups?

Both skippers were keen to have an early bowl but the coin fell Virat Kohli’s way and Australia have been invited to bat first on a surface that has only had about 20 minutes to breathe in the past 24 hours.

While we’re waiting for more news from the middle, catch up with some other cricket happening elsewhere on the site, namely the third Test between Sri Lanka and England where England are rattling on nicely at lunch on day one.

The good news is the teams are out, warming up, and there’s every chance we’ll start near enough on time. The main rain has now passed but there remain some lingering showers. It is quite remarkable how quickly these modern grounds drain. There is no chance this match would have gone ahead a decade ago.

Here’s confirmation of the anti-cricketness of today’s weather.