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After winning the first T20I comfortably, India set their eyes on sealing the series in Lucknow, holding its first T20I. Coin, this time though, turned in Windies favor as they decided to chase. Indian openers started cautiously scoring just 11 runs off first 3 overs with the pace of Oshane Thomas troubling them again.
Mixing caution with aggression, they shifted a gear and started hitting gaps on the big ground. Dhawan perished after scoring 43 off 40 balls. From there on it was the Hitman show as he made a mockery of the Windies attack, clobbering them all over the park. With the help of some late blows from KL Rahul India reached a massive total of 195 with Rohit alone scoring 111 of them.
Chasing a massive target of 196, Windies never really got in the game. Despite their batting depth, none of the batsmen got going. Khaleel Ahmed started the juggernaut by picking up 2 wickets upfront. Kuldeep, again, took care of the inexperienced middle order of Windies as none of them were able to read him.
From there on it was tight bowling from the seamers as Windies crumbled under pressure and surrendered themselves to the might of Indian bowling. They fell short of the target by 71 runs. Thus India took an unsalable 2-0 lead in the 3 match series.
Here is what the captain’s said:
Carlos Brathwaite: We fielded well in the last game, but today we didn't field that well. It was always going to be an uphill task to chase such a total. This is hard to digest but we need to take the positives before we play the final game. They batted well without losing a wicket in the initial overs. We wanted to restrict them to 170-180 but that didn't happen. Our batting continues to let us down. We got a young group of guys so we need to appreciate the positives, the small good things we did. We are still trying to find our best opening combination. We never got off to a good start in the first two games. It's difficult to choose the perfect batting pair but we're trying. We need to make the best decisions, we think. It didn't work batting wise in these two games. Hopefully, in the third game we'll put up a better performance and come up with a win.
Rohit Sharma, Man of the Match: Like I said at the toss, not many games have been played here. We wanted to get used to the pitch, hence we took our time. Whenever you get an opportunity you do your best. Everyone who came out to watch the game will go home with a smile. Glad that we won this game and this series as well. Shikhar's natural instinct is to put pressure on bowlers. We took the time initially and when he gets going it's not easy. I think 120-plus partnership between us was very crucial. Bumrah has been one of the premier bowlers for us. We use him different in T20Is then in ODIs. Khaleel is a different bowler with the new ball. It's only helping the team when someone like Khaleel bowls in such a manner. One of the best stadiums we've played at, the way the crowd supported, hope to get the same support in future.
Here is how Twitter reacted:
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