IND v AUS 2nd T20I: Australia levels series 1-1 with 8-wicket win

Guwahati: Australia registered their first win in the T20 series and second on their tour by defeating the hosting Indian side by 8 wickets in the second Twenty20 International (T20I) at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium here on Tuesday.

With this convincing victory, Australia also levelled the three-match series 1-1 with one match to go.

Coming in to chase a small target of 119 runs, Australia list its openers early giving some hope to India of somehow managing to defend the target.

Skipper David Warner (2 off 5) Aaron Finch (8 off 8) were both back to the pavilion when Australia had only 11 runs on the board, but a solid partnership between Moises Henriques and Travis Head ensured the visiting team doesn’t suffer any more nerves in the match.

Henriques played an unbeaten 62-run inning which came off only 46 balls and was decorated with 4 fours and 4 sixes, while Head remained not out at 48 runs off 34 balls. He smashed 5 fours and a six during his inning.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah were the only wicket-takers for India as they managed to dismiss Finch and Warner respectively. Kuldeep Yadav went extremely expensive as he conceded 46 runs in his 4 overs while Yuzvendra Chahal went for 29 runs in 3.3 overs.

Earlier, India suffered a major batting collapse as Jason Behrendorff ripped through the top order of the hosts to help Australia restrict them to a small total of 118 runs.

Behrendorff managed to get 4 wickets, the top four Indian batsmen, in his four overs and went for mere 21 runs, while Adam Zampa also bowled a superb spell and sent two Indian batsmen back to the pavilion in his four overs. He conceded only 19 runs. Behrendorff was also named player of the match for his amazing performance.

Nathan Coulter-Nile, Andrew Tye and Marcus Stoinis were all economical and also plucked a wicket each for 23, 30 and 20 runs, respectively.

Also Read: IND v AUS 2nd T20I: Behrendorff rampage wraps India for 118

Rohit Sharma, despite hitting two boundaries, got out on the fourth delivery of the match, and skipper Virat Kohli also went back on the last delivery of the same over without even opening his account.

Manish Pandey (6 off 7) was the next to depart in the third over, off the bowling of the same over. Opener Shikhar Dhawan, who was finding it tough to score freely, tried to play a big shot to only find David Warner near the boundary-line. He scored only 2 runs off 6 the balls he faced.

Kedar Jadhav and MS Dhoni tried to consolidate the inning but could not add more than 33 runs for the fifth wicket, as the latter was smartly stumped off the bowling of Zampa. Dhoni scored 13 runs off 16 balls with 1 boundary.

Hardik Pandya also played a fine inning of 25 runs off 23 balls and also hit a six, but failed to stay till the end and accelerate the scoring rate. Jadhav went back after scoring run-a-ball 27 with three fours and a six. Bhuvneshwar Kumar scored 1 run while Kuldeep Yadav played an important inning of 16 runs off 19 balls, which helped in extending the inning through to the final delivery.

Jasprit Bumrah scored 7 runs off 9 balls with 1 boundary, before getting run out by the wicket-keeper. Yuzvendra Chahal remained unbeaten at 3 runs off 2 balls.