The Board of Control for Cricket in India posted a picture on its official Twitter account of fans watching India's first ODI against Australia and on looking closely, the people could be seen standing across a barbed wire fence.
BCCI captioned the picture, "Where are you watching today's game from?"
Various people commented their replies to the question. While some were enjoying the game from their homes, a few people were in office and hoped their bosses do not see their tweets. One person, perhaps spotting the barbed wire fencing commented, "That is sarcastic tweet for Pakistan."
This five-match ODI series between India and Australia is the last international assignment for the hosts before the World Cup. Virat Kohli's men are thus looking to fine-tune their combination and personnel ahead of the quadrennial event.
Earlier in the day, Australia won the toss and elected to bat first on a warm day in Hyderabad. India made a cracking start to the innings when a returning Jasprit Bumrah dismissed the opposition captain Aaron Finch for a duck. Marcus Stoinis and Usman Khawaja then did a fine rebuilding job before the former threw away his wicket to an innocuous delivery by Kedar Jadhav.
The right-arm off-break bowler was at his best when it came to bowling with a round arm. He is endearingly termed as the man who bowls from below the sea level. India opted to play Ravindra Jadeja as the other specialist spinner along with Kuldeep Yadav and rested Yuzvendra Chahal. While the former did not pick any wickets, he was extremely economical in the middle overs, choking the Aussie run flow.
Kuldeep Yadav, meanwhile, bowled beautifully in his spell of ten overs picking up two wickets for 46 runs. His first wicket was that of the well set Khawaja whom he deceived in flight as the ball dipped on him when he went for a big shot over midwicket. Vijay Shankar subsequently made good ground and took a very watchable running catch. The Chinaman bowler followed it up with a classic dismissal when he had Peter Handscomb stumped. The ball spun into an advancing Handscomb and beat him between bat and pad to leave him stranded in the middle of the pitch.
Mohammed Shami dished out another bowling exhibition and picked up Glenn Maxwell's wicket with a peach of a delivery. The ball pitched just outside off stump on a good length inviting an ambitious drive. But Maxwell left a gap between bat and pad through which the ball sneaked through courtesy Shami's special reverse swing. The batsman did not look back for he did not want to see an uprooted off stump lying on the ground.
India's laudable bowling display saw the visitors restricted to 236-7 in their quota of 50 overs.
