Top 3 T20 International innings of Robin Uthappa : Robin Venu Uthappa, ‘The Walking Assassin,’ was awarded his T20 International cap in the seventh match of the ICC T20 World Cup on the 13th September, 2007, against Scotland at Kingsmead, Durban, South Africa/.
Unfortunately the match had to be called off even before the toss on account of inclement weather conditions.
Since then Uthappa has featured in 13 games (12 innings) and has scored 249 runs at an average of 24.90 with 50 as his highest score.
Let us take a look into three significant innings:
1. 50 runs against Pakistan on 14th September, 2007 at Kingsmead, Durban
The 10th match of the 2007 edition of the ICC T20 World Cup was played at Kingsmead, Durban, South Africa.
Pakistan won the toss and put India into bat.
Losing the openers, Gautam Gambhir (0), Virendra Sejhwag (5) and Yuvraj Singh (1) with just 19 runs on the board, Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik put up a fourth wicket partnership of 17 runs in 2.3 overs.
Later Uthappa alongwith the skipper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, added another 46 runs in 5.3 overs for the fifth wicket, when he got out after being at the crease for 52 minutes and scoring 50 runs in just 39 deliveries with the help of 4 fours and 2 sixes at a strike rate of 128.21.
India ended up scoring 141 runs for the loss of 9 wickets in their allotted 20 overs. However, the match ended in a tie with Pakistan scoring 141 runs for the loss of 7 wickets in 20 overs.
India won the game in ‘bowl-out
2. 42 runs against Zimbabwe on 19th July, 2015 at Harare
Team India embarked on a short tour of 3 ODIs and 2 T20Is to Zimbabwe in July, 2015, under the leadership of Ajinkya Rahane since all the senior players were rested after a gruelling series’ with Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2014-15, World Cup 2015 and a single Test and 3 ODIs to Bangladesh. All these engagements had ended in a disaster.
The second of the two T20Is was played on 19th July, 2015, at Harare Sports Club ground, Harare.
Winning the toss and electing to bat, the hosts put up 145 runs for the loss of 7 wickets in their allotted 20 overs.
For India, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohit Sharma picked up 2 wickets each.
Chasing the target, India lost their opener and skipper, Ajinkya Rahane (4) in the third delivery of the innings with just 4 runs on the board.
Robin Uthappa partnered the other opener, Murali Vijay and they both put up a partnership of 53 runs in 5.4 overs at a strike of 9.1 runs per over.
In the eighth over, Uthappa got out after scoring 42 runs off 25 deliveries with 8 hits to the fence.
However, this innings of Uthappa was not sufficient enough for Team India to attain the target. They could manage to score only 135 runs for the loss of 9 wickets in 20 overs.
The hosts won the match by 10 runs and levelled the T20I series 1-1. But for this the series would have been a complete ‘white wash’ in favour of India since they had won the ODI series 3-0 and the first of the two-match T20I series.
3. 35 runs against Australia on 20th October, 2007 at Mumbai, India
The one-off T20 International match during Australia’s visit to India in 2007-08 was played on the 20th October 2007, at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai. This was the match in which the left-arm leggie, Murali Karthik made his T20 International debut.
Winning the toss, Australia chose to bat and put up 166 runs for the loss of 5 wickets in their allotted 20 overs. Skipper Ricky Ponting notched up a well made 76 runs in 79 deliveries with 13 fours.
Chasing the target, India lost the opener Virendra Sehwag (5) with just 20 runs on the board in the third over.
Robin Uthappa, joined the other opener, Gautam Gambhir in the middle and the duo went on to build up a very useful second wicket partnership of 82 runs in 8.1 overs, scoring at a rate of 10.12 runs an over.
Uthappa got out after being in the crease for 38 minutes, facing 26 deliveries. With the aid of 6 fours and at a strike rate of 134.61, he ended up scoring 35 runs.
India successfully chased the target and ended up scoring 167 runs for the loss of 3 wickets in 18.1 overs and went on to win the game by 7 wickets with 11 deliveries to spare.