Team India got a reality check in the second T20I against Australia as they got beaten by 8 wickets with 27 balls to spare. Chasing a modest total of 119 on a Guwahati wicket did not trouble the Australian batsmen. There were a few hiccups with the new ball as Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah picked up the wicket of Aaron Finch and David Warner. But Moises Henriques and Travis Head rebuild the innings and helped Australia to a comfortable win keeping themselves alive in the three-match T20I series. One big disappointment for India were their spinners who could not provide a breakthrough in the middle overs.
Henriques and Head put on a partnership of 109 runs for the third wicket. Henriques scored 62 runs from 46 balls whereas Head scored 48 runs from 34 balls. They never let Indian spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal dominate which turned out to be the game-changer for the visitors.
Earlier Warner won the toss and elected to field first as the weather forecast showed rain might play spoilsport in the game. Indian opener Rohit Sharma got off to a fantastic start hitting two boundaries in a row. Though his innings was shortlived as Behrendorff trapped him in front of the stumps with an inswinger. It was followed by a record-breaking delivery to Virat Kohli getting him out for a duck for the first time in T20Is.
IND vs AUS 2017, 2nd T20I: MS Dhoni Wicket https://t.co/3AWE5JN0Ce #BCCI
— Cricket-atti (@cricketatti) October 10, 2017
IND vs AUS 2017, 2nd T20I: Virat Kohli Wicket https://t.co/QlGYpyaLvb #BCCI
— Cricket-atti (@cricketatti) October 10, 2017
Behrendroff did not just stop there. He picked up the wickets of Shikhar Dhawan and Manish Pandey crushing India’s top order in the powerplay overs. India kept losing wickets in the middle overs and ended up getting all out for just 118 runs in their full quota of 20 overs.
Only Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya managed to reach the 20s while MS Dhoni fell prey to his own game plan. Dhoni scored only 13 runs. Though Kuldeep did well to keep the wickets intact by scoring 16 runs from 19 balls.
