Hello everyone,
The second match between India and Australia ended with the win of India and this equals the on-going series by 1-1 with remaining 1 match that is to be played on 18th of Jan, the last match of this tour! Australia won the toss and opted to bat. The reason behind opting to bat is that nearly 80% of matches on this tour went in the hands of the team who won the toss and batted first. The opening duo failed this time however, Usman kept the things going and hold one of the ends. Shaun Marsh hit one more ton which helped Australia to recover from the loss. Glen Maxwell got out when he was just 2 runs away from his another fifty. Australia gave the target of 299 runs which seems challenging but in the end, India managed to win the game in the last over of this match.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar took 4 wickets whereas Shami got 3 wickets which helped India to sum up Australia quickly. Mohammad Siraj debuted but failed to take any wickets in the very first international match of his career and conceded runs at a run rate of 7.60! India went on to chase a mammoth total of 299 runs which looks quite challenging. The openers did make a good start by not losing any wickets in the first 50 runs spell, however, the duo failed to extend their partnership further. Rohit went on 43 runs and the responsibility was on the chaser and run machine Virat Kohli. Virat Kohli hit the century number #39 and now the total number of centuries in his International career is #64.
Ambati failed to convert his good start into the fifties and scored 24 runs in his inning with two boundaries. Kohli got caught on the long-on, he scored 104 runs and is the player of the match. Karthik holds the one end and went on with Dhoni to get closer to the target. Dhoni scored one more fifty of his career and sealed the victory by hitting a six in the last over. Jason, Jhye, Maxwell, and Stoinis took 1-1 wickets.
The last match of the tour is to be played on 18 and there is no chance of any replacement or swapping in the playing 11 of team India. The third and the last match is going to be the decider of this series.
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