India VS Australia, Dettol T20 Series 2020 
2nd Match 
Played at SCG, Sydney Australia Played on 6 December, 2020
Brief Scorecard
India 195/4 in 19.4 Overs (S Dhawan 52, H Pandya 42*, V Kohli 40, KL Rahul 30, MJ Swepson 1/25, A Zampa 1/36 ) beat Australia 194/5 ( MS Wade 58, SPD Smith 46, HC Henriques 26 , GJ Maxwell 22, T Natarajan 2/20, YS Chahal 1/51)  by 6 Wicket 

Player Of the Match: H Pandya 

Injury and personal issues made Australia a depleted unit, India also strategically changed few frontline players. Still the second T20 match of the series at SCG Sydney produced a high scoring derby.

Great batting depth of India led them winning the very exciting match by 6 wickets with 2 balls to spare. Australia put into bat scored impressive 194/5 in allotted overs. India zoomed past scoring 195/4 in 19.4 overs. India also won the first T20 match at Manuka Oval on Friday. Kohli’s team India wrapped up the T20 series 2-0 with the 3rd at SCG turning out as of academic interest.

Australia lost Warner through injury during ODI series and decided to rest Vice Captain Cummins for reducing his work load for test. Injury to Captain Aaron Flinch required Australia drafting Matthew Wade making him the captain. Mitchel Starc opted out for family reasons. So, Australia on the day appeared with two changed opening batsmen and two new strike bowlers. India also made few changes with the eyes for fresh legs for the test series.

During the Pandemic Indian players only played T20 matches in the IPL 2020 held at UAE. They have better resources in their arsenal for T20 matches especially they have explosive batsmen all the way. That very fact was amply demonstrated yesterday as chasing a substantially tall target of 195 India always kept it within sight.

Australian make shift captain Matthew Wade gave the team a rollicking start blasting 58 in 32 deliveries before getting run out in a bizzare fashion. He was standing in the middle of the wicket and gazing as Virat dropped a dolly.  Australia raced to 47 in the first wicket partnership mainly through enterprising and inventive batting of Wade when D Arcy Short got out scoring only 9. Wade and Smith appeared taking away the match from India when Wade ran himself out. Smith’s (46), Henriques (26) and Maxwell (26) cameos took Australia to impressive 194/5 in allotted overs. On the easy paced with a short boundary in one side that score though challenging did not appear insurmountable for strong Indian batting. 

Rahul and Dhawan gave India a good start putting together 56 runs in 5.2 overs before Rahul got out scoring 30. Vintage Kohli and Aggressive Dhawan kept the momentum going adding quick 39 for the second wicket went back scoring 52 scored in 36 deliveries. Two Aussie leg spinners Swepson and Zampa bowling in tandem created some squeeze. When Virat got out scoring 40 in 24 deliveries India was 149 /4 in the 17th over. The target was still 46 runs away.  But a blistering unbeaten 42 by H Pandya and unbroken 46 runs in 3.3 overs between Pandya and Iyer won the match and the   Dettol series for the men in blues 2-0.

CA has lifted restriction on crowd attendance for the third match on Tuesday. A capacity attendance is expected as anywhere Indian Cricket team plays vociferous Blue Army out voice the home team. 

BDST: 1352 HRS, DEC 07, 2020
SMS