Vizag was the venue as India and Australia played the 2nd ODI on Sunday. The teams just had a one day break after playing the 1st game of the series on Friday. India had won the first game at Mumbai after chasing down 189 with 5 wickets in hand. On the back of the win, India had taken a 1-0 lead in the 3 match series.
The story so far –
Australian skipper Steve Smith won the toss yet again and this decided to field first. The visitors made two changes as Alex Carey and Nathan Ellis came in for Josh Inglis and Glenn Maxwell. Indian team welcomed back their skipper, Rohit Sharma in place of Ishan Kishan, while Shardul Thakur was replaced by Axar Patel. The Indian team opted to go in for a 3 man spin option.
Steve Smith stuns Indian fans with an amazing catch –
Indian batting wobbled yet again as Mitchell Starc was the destroyer in chief with the ball. Hardik Pandya who was the skipper in the 1st ODI, came in to bat with the score reading 48/4.
Sean Abbot bowing the 10th over got the ball to rise up a bit. Pandya played the ball awkwardly half fending it. The ball took the edge of the bat and flew towards slips where Steve Smith dived to his right to take a beauty as Pandya was out for 1 off 3 balls.
Steve Smith how can you even???#INDvsAUS pic.twitter.com/VYH4tFR4FG
— Aditya Chandra (@iadityachandra) March 19, 2023
Shubman Gill fails yet again –
Put into bat, Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill came out to open the batting. The 23 year old right hander had been in terrific nick during the ODI series against New Zealand. on Sunday, Gill was out for a duck caught at point by Labuschagne by Starc the same way he had been dismissed on Friday at Mumbai.
Starc breaks the back of Indian batting –
The early fall of Gill, got Virat Kohli into bat and for a while it seemed as if the veterans Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli may steady the ship. Rohit went for an expansive shot only to be caught at slip by Smith for 13.
Surya Kumar Yadav was out for a 2nd successive first ball duck falling LBW to Starc. Hero of the last game, KL Rahul was out for 9 when he was also out leg before to give Starc his 4th wicket of the day to leave India in trouble.