India beats Australia in the second t20i of the three-match series. Indian captain Rohit Sharma starred with the bat while Axar led by his bowling performance. India had already lost the first match.
There were doubts over the match as the ground was wet due to the continuous rain in Nagpur. Nevertheless, groundsmen did their job and it was decided to play 8 over a side match.
Toss
India won the toss and invited Australia to bat first after winning the toss.
India had made two changes with Rishabh Pant and Bumrah replacing Umesh Yadav and Bhuvi. Australia replaced Inglis and Ellis with Abbott and Daniel Sams.
Australian Innings
Australia didn’t start that well and lost the last match hero Cameroon Green early.
Captain Finch gave the current world champions a brisk start and departed after scoring 31 off 15 on a brilliant yorker by Jasprit Bumrah, who was making comeback after an injury.
Axar Patel was brilliant with the ball as he took two crucial wickets of Maxwell and Tim David, batters of destructive reputation. However, Matthew Wade again succeeded against India with the exceptional 43* of 20 balls.Â
India was given the target of 91 runs in 8 overs.
Indian Innings
Rohit Sharma was very clear with his intent from the beginning and in the very first over he hit two sixes on Hazlewood’s bowling. Rahul joined the party two with another six taking team’s total to 20 in the very first over.
However, Rahul departed soon after getting bowled by Adam Zampa. Virat Kohli did hit a couple of good shots only to get trapped by Zampa later. India lost Surya Kumar too on the very next delivery.
Just when it was looking tricky, Pandya and Sharma held a good 20 runs partnership to stabilize the innings. Dinesh Karthik “DK” did the rest of the finishing work with 10* runs in two balls.
Rohit scored 46* off 20 deliveries and Karthik 10* off 2. Adam Zampa took 3 wickets.
Sharma was declared the player of the match.Â
Captain’s post-match interview
Aaron Finch appreciated Sharma’s inning and stated that it was Axar who was the turning point. He also applauded Matthew Wade’s calm approach. He was happy with Zampa’s performance.
Rohit Sharma said that he was surprised by his performance as well and he didn’t expect himself to do that well. He also said that he had been playing with a similar approach for a few months now
“But when you are playing a game like that you can’t plan too much. You just have to play the situation and use conditions to your advantage. I felt when we were bowling the bowlers had something to bowl to.”
“We used the conditions pretty well. But then at the back end, dew started coming in. That is where we want guys to learn how tough it is.” he further added
He was also happy about the comeback of Bumrah and was also impressed with Akshar’s performance
With this series is tied at 1-1 with one match to go. The last match will be played on Sunday 25th at Hyderabad.
Bowling concerns
With Bhuvi going for a lot of runs in the last three matches, changes were done in this match but Harshal Patel again disappointed the team by giving away 32 runs in just two overs.
Experienced Chahal is not in the form either. It is to be noted that India still hasn’t played with the trio of Arshdeep, Kumar and Bumrah together which is more likely going to be the pace attack in the upcoming t20i world cup in Australia.
Well, fans are still hoping these concerns get solved soon before the main event.
