India beats Australia in the Nail-Biting 2nd ODI by 8 runs, Leads 2-0 in the Series

NAGPUR – India defeated Australia in the close 2nd ODI match at Nagpur by 8 runs. Australian side won the toss and elected to bowl first. The decision seemed right after the first innings as Australian team managed to restrict Indian side to 250 runs and could not allow the opponent to complete 50 overs at the ground. In its response, the Australian side took an excellent start due to its high scoring opening partnership. But the Indian bowlers took wickets on regular intervals and prevented the Aussies from reaching the target in the crucial last over. This is the 500th ODI win for team India and with this victory, it leads in the series with 2-0.

After the fall of Indian openers within the first ten overs, it was the Indian captain Virat Kohli who took the responsibility of his team in his hands. On the other hand, Rayadu showed some excellent shots but could not support his team in the middle overs. It was an excellent knock by Vijay Shankar which helped the Indian side to build a much-needed fourth wicket partnership. However, after his unfortunate run-out on Kohli’s straight drive, Australia team came back into the match strongly. Australian spinner Adam Zampa showed his spinning talent and took wickets of Kedar Jadhav and MS Dhoni on two consecutive balls. On one side, wickets were falling but Virat Kohli stood firmly on the difficult to bat pitch and scored his 40th ODI century. After he got out, the Australian team took no time and sent the entire Indian team into the pavilion in the 49th over.

Chasing the target for 251 runs, Australian openers, Aaron Finch and Usman Khawaja played some really exciting strokes and built a very good 83 runs partnership. However, it was Kuldeep’s magical bowling, which took two Australian wickets in a limited time. This helped the Indian team to put a restriction on Australian run rate and it managed to put a lot of pressure on the opponent. Some excellent bowling spells by Kedar Jadhav, Kuldeep Yadav, and Ravindra Jadeja helped the Indian team to make it difficult for the Australian team to score runs.

It was Marcus Stoinis from the Australian side which didn’t give his wicket till the end. But in the death overs, Bumrah gave two blows to Australia by picking two wickets in the 46th overs. It was the last over in which Australia needed 11 runs off 6 balls. Marcus Stoinis was no strike and the ball was in the hand of Vijay Shankar. On the first ball, Shankar got Stoinis LBW and also took Adam Zampa’s wicket on the third delivery to all-out the Australian side for 242 runs and hence Indian side won the nail-biting thriller by 8 runs.