The Indian team came into the second ODI against Australia at Rajkot with just one objective, win the match and equalize the series. After the humiliation of a 10-wicket loss at Mumbai, things came to a head in Rajkot and Indian batting came to the party.
Aaron Finch won the toss and chose to bowl first. India brought in Navdeep Saini and Manish Pandey for Rishabh Pant and Shardul Thakur.
Unlike last time, Australia struggled to pick early wickets, as Rohit (42) added 81 runs for the first wicket with Shikhar Dhawan, who looked in deadly touch. The Indian batsmen looked in control and got runs without much risk, but didn’t sacrifice the run-rate either as they did in Mumbai.
Dhawan continued his good run, scoring 96 with 13 fours and 1 six. And Virat Kohli slammed 78 in 76 balls, and along with KL Rahul, laid the foundation for a big total. KL Rahul made an amazing 80 in 52 balls with 6 fours and 3 sixes, coming at no.5 this time. Iyer (7) and Pandey (2) fell pretty early.
Rahul and Jadeja (20*) gave the Indian team the much-needed finish as the final total came to 340/6 in 50 overs. Adam Zampa picked 3/50 and Kane Richardson got 2/73 for Australia.
The cricket fraternity lauded an unbelievable inning from KL Rahul who took the team to a substantially good total.
Here are some tweets:
