Diwali ushered a day early in Lucknow – where cricket returned after 24 years – as skipper Rohit Sharma smashed world records to lead India to a comfortable 71 runs victory against the West Indies in the second Twenty20 international at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee International Stadium on Tuesday.
Rohit scored his fourth century – the first cricketer to do so – and became India’s highest T-20 scorer after smashing an unbeaten 111 off just 61 deliveries that included eight fours and seven sixes. And he with opening partner Shikhar Dhawan (43) and a late surge from KL Rahul (26) guided India to a mammoth score of 195 runs on board.
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Darren Bravo stuck for some time before edging a quick delivery from Kuldeep Yadav to Rohit at slips, who showed great reflexes to take a sharp catch. From there it was a slide with Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah joining in with two wickets each and until Keemo Paul and Windies captain Carlos Brathwaite hit three sixes in a Kuldeep over, the Caribbean nation seemed to be going down to a heavy defeat.
They eventually survived from being at 81/7 to remaining nine wickets down for 124 at the end of the 20th over. But India clinched the series 2-0, with one match remaining.
Just as ineffective was their bowling unit and was their batting and the opening pair of Rohit and Dhawan made merry dealing in boundaries after overseeing the opening three overs. The visitors were also made to pay for their sloppy fielding with Paul dropping Dhawan early into the contest.
From being at 6/0 at the end of the third over, India soon were dealing in 10 runs an over and although Dhawan and Rishabh Pant fell in quick succession, Rahul and Rohit took 62 from 28 balls for the third wicket to put a big total on board.