INDvsENG: England restricts India to 144/8 despite Rahul's heroics

Shobhit Kalra
Published on: 29 Jan 2017 3:05 PM GMT
INDvsENG: England restricts India to 144/8 despite Rahuls heroics
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INDvsENG: England restricts India to 144/8 despite Rahul's heroics

Nagpur: It was a one man show from the hosts as opener Lokesh Rahul played a sensational inning of 71 runs to help a struggling team India to post a fighting total of 144/8 in the second Twenty20 International (T20I) at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium here on Sunday.

Rahul scored 71 runs off just 47 balls hitting 6 fours and 2 sixes, before getting out to Chris Jordan. He smashed a well-timed shot but unfortunately found the lone man (Ben Stokes) standing at deep midwicket.

Skipper Virat Kohli, who on the back of his terrific performance in the last year's Indian Premier League (IPL) has promoted himself up in the order as the opener, got off to a good start but mistimed a slower delivery from Chris Jordan to give a simple catch to Liam Dawson at the long-off. He scored 21 runs off 15 balls hitting 2 fours and a six.

Suresh Raina (7 off 11), who was looking good in the first T20I in Kanpur, failed to capitalise the opportunity and got out playing a totally mistimed slog-sweep of the bowling of Adil Rashid.

Yuvraj Singh (4 off 12) once again disappointed with his batting as he was caught in front of the wickets while playing a off-balance sweep shot on Moeen Ali's bowling.

Manish Pandey, however, added 56 runs for the 4th wicket with Rahul and went on scoring 30 runs off 26 balls with 1 six. MS Dhoni once again failed to boost the scoring rate during slog overs as he could only score 5 runs off 7 balls. During the last over of the innings, Hardik Pandya (2 off 3) and Amit Mishra (o off 0) got run out and MSD finally lost his wicket on the final ball of the innings.

Jordan picked 3 wickets for 22 runs in his 4 overs while Tymal Mills, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid bagged 1 wicket each.

Before this match, India had appeared in two T20Is on this ground. The hosts had lost both the previous matches while chasing.

England openers will soon be back to the ground to chase down a modest target of 145 runs.

Shobhit Kalra

Shobhit Kalra

Writer has 10 years of experience in digital media. Presently working as Chief Sub Editor at newstrack.com. An avid reader and always willing to learn new things and techniques.

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