India beat Australia by six wickets in the 2nd T20I at the Vidarbha Cricket Association, Nagpur. After batting first, Australia set India a target of 91 runs to chase. The hosts chased down the target with four balls to spare, with skipper Rohit Sharma being the architect of the run chase.
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Sharma showed his intent as soon as he was on strike in the first over. He hit effortlessly hit two consecutive sixes, taking world No.1 T20I bowler Josh Hazlewood to the cleaners.
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He has now hit the highest number of sixes (174) in T20I cricket. He already holds the record of scoring most runs in T20Is.
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Earlier in the game, the toss was delayed several times by umpires KN Anantha Padmanabhan and Nitin Menon. Finally, skipper Sharma won the toss and decided to bowl first. India made two changes where Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant came back in for Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav. Due to the game being reduced to eight overs a side, the Indian team management decided to opt for an extra batter.
The Aussies also made two changes in their playing XI, with Nathan Ellis and Josh Inglis making way for Sean Abott and Daniel Sams.
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India started well as Axar Patel continued his form from the first game with a solid opening over. With his first ball, he almost had Cameron Green, but Kohli dropped the catch at long-on. With a fielding at mid-on, the former captain maked up for his mistake, to run out Green. It was Glenn Maxwell next as he was bowled by Axar with the first ball. Patel again bowled out Tim David in a similar fashion in his next bowl. However, he missed his hattrick as Matthew Wade flicked the ball to short fine leg. Aaron Finch, however kept on scoring boundaries consistently, however he was bowled by Bumrah. After that Wade took on the mantle of scoring runs and started his blitz, hitting 31 runs in the final two overs.
The visitors set the Men in Blue a target of 91 runs. Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul showed intent in the first over itself, hitting Josh Hazlewood for 20 runs. Eventhough some Adam Zampa brilliance in the middle, there was nothing Australia could do to stop the Hitman. He soon reached 41 runs off just 18 balls, with the equation reading 22 runs needed of 2 overs. Inspite of Hardik Pandya losing his wicket, Rohit Sharma managed to bring the equation down to 9 runs needing in the last over. Dinesh Kartik hit a six and a four in the first two balls of the over to take India to the win.