India staged a remarkable comeback with an impressive six-wicket win in the all-important second T20I at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur on Friday, September 23. By the virtue of this win, the three-match series is tied at 1-1.
This contest also marked the comeback of India's pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah who picked up the key wicket of the Australian limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch just when he looked in complete control of the proceedings having scored a 15-ball 31.
Dinesh Karthik finishes off in style for India
After skipper Finch's cameo knock that had come after they lost the key wickets of Cameron Green and powerhitter Glenn Maxwell, wickets continued to tumble, but Matthew Wade once again came to the rescue and tormented the Indian bowling attack. He clobbered Harshal Patel for three maximums in the final over. Wade scored an unbeaten 20-ball 43 as Australia posted a mammoth 90/5 after eight overs.
In reply, skipper Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul got India off to a brisk start as they scored 39 runs for the opening wicket. The hosts did suffer a setback when Zampa ran through India's batting dismissing Rahul, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav before Rohit and Hardik Pandya carried out the rescue act.
Hardik was dismissed in the penultimate over and a four from Rohit soon brought the equation down to nine runs from the final over. Veteran Dinesh Karthik completed the formalities with a six and a four as India got past the finish line. Rohit remained unbeaten on 46 runs off 20 deliveries while Karthik scored 10 runs from two balls.
Winning skipper and Player of the Match, Rohit Sharma said:
I was quite surprised as well actually. Didn't expect to hit it like that, glad it came off. For the last 8-9 months I have been playing like that. You can't really plan too much is such a shortened game. The bowlers had something to bowl to and we bowled well.
The dew started coming in later, which is why we saw a few full tosses from Harshal. Coming back after a couple of months, the back injury can be tricky. I am not going to talk too much about how he bowled. Got us the crucial wicket. As a team we are not going to analyse too much. Just want him to come and enjoy.
Axar can bowl in any stage, gives me an advantage of using the other bowlers in different situations too - maybe use the pacers in the middle overs if he bowls in the powerplay. I would like to see his batting as well.
Glad DK could finish well. Been a while since he had some time in the middle. There was this thought if we should get Rishabh in but I thought Sams is going to bowl off-cutters, so I thought let DK come in and he is playing that role anyway for us. Groundsmen have been here since 1.30 pm to get the outfield ready.
Losing skipper Aaron Finch said:
You probably plan for a 5-over game and then a bit more to it. Rohit played brilliantly and two overs of Axar made the difference. Wade is a calm customer at the back end and he has grown into that finisher's role. Zampa was good too.
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