Josh Inglis hits the ignition as race for T20 World Cup begins

Josh Inglis has left everyone in awe.

Mukesh Kumar is scratching his head. Axar Patel and Rinku Singh have wry smiles on their faces. Suryakumar Yadav, India's stand-in captain, cannot help applauding.

In the tenth over during the first T20I in Visakhapatnam, Mukesh marginally missed his length with the yorker. Inglis took it on the full, used his wrists to open the face of the bat beyond 90°, and hit it into the turf. The ball flew off the surface, beating the backward point to his left and leaving the deep third with no chance of stopping it.

No one in world cricket plays such shots better, or more regularly, than Suryakumar. In fact, he has even hit sixes off those deliveries over that region. Still, he was seen shadow-practising what Inglis had just done. There couldn't have been a bigger compliment.

Inglis is no stranger to inventive strokeplay. On his T20I debut against Sri Lanka last year, facing just his fourth ball, he reverse-swept Wanindu Hasaranga through point for four. On Thursday, however, he opened his account with a textbook cover-drive off the first ball he faced, from Ravi Bishnoi.

Australia had lost Matthew Short from the previous ball. But on a small ground and a belter of a pitch, they knew they had to attack all the way through. Inglis was up to the task. The only time he looked a bit handcuffed was when Axar cramped him with the arm-ball. But after three dots, Axar pitched one short and wide, and Inglis duly dispatched it to the boundary.

From there on, it was a complete domination. In the eighth over of the innings, Inglis hit Prasidh Krishna for three fours and a six in one over as the fast bowler struggled with his line and length. Till then, that six - clearing the deep-backward point fielder via a back-foot punch - was the shot of the match. But the night was still young. A couple of overs later, Inglis bettered it, at least in the eyes of his opponents, with the aforementioned four off Mukesh.

He reserved the severest punishment for Bishnoi, off whom he scored 49 from just 15 balls. Six of his eight sixes came against the legspinner, three in one over. It was not that Inglis was targeting a particular area. He scored all around the wicket - 54 runs came on the off-side and 56 on the leg - which meant India couldn't restrict him by packing one side and bowling there.

Having brought up his fifty off 29 balls, Inglis needed only 18 more to get to his hundred. It was the joint-fastest T20I hundred by an Australia batter, equalling Aaron Finch's 47-ball effort against England in 2013. En route to the milestone, he reverse-scooped a full delivery from Arshdeep Singh over short third for four, once again impressing Suryakumar.

Despite Steven Smith scoring only 52 off 41, Inglis' 110 off 50 balls powered Australia to 208 for 3. Eventually, it didn't prove to be enough as India chased it down with one ball to spare. But Inglis has seen far bigger ups and downs in life.

There was a time when he wasn't able to convert his starts in first-class cricket. After 34 matches, he averaged 28.15 with nine fifties and no hundred. He overcame that by working with a sports psychologist and spending more time with his batting coach. In the next 18 games, he has scored at 44.27 and notched up four hundreds.

During that time, he and Alex Carey were contesting for a place in the 2021-22 Ashes squad after Tim Paine stepped away from the game for a mental-health break. The selectors went with Carey. The following year, Inglis was picked as Matthew Wade's back-up for the 2022 T20 World Cup, but a freak golf injury ruled him out of the tournament.

But things have been looking up in 2023. During the recently concluded ODI World Cup, he replaced Carey as the first-choice 50-over keeper, and scored 58 off 59 against Sri Lanka in his second game. In his next six innings, he could manage only 96 runs at an average of 16.00 but had the team management's backing all the way through to the title.

Inglis has also replaced Wade in the T20I side, or at least that is what it now looks like. When Australia played a three-match T20I series in South Africa earlier this year, Inglis played all the games with Wade warming the bench.

Even though Wade is the captain, and the first-choice keeper, for this five-match T20I series, he isn't sure if he will be the first-choice keeper for next year's T20 World Cup. And Inglis' innings hasn't made things any easier. But Wade was full of praise for the "terrific knock".

"I was just speaking to him and asking if he wants to go back down the order," Wade said after the game. "But I don't think we are seeing that for a while (laughs). To come out at No. 3 and play shots from ball one... he was the class better on the night."