
Courtesy: BCCI
On Saturday, January 25, in the second T20I of the five-match series, the Indian cricket team defeated England by two wickets in a last over thriller at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. After Indian bowlers were exemplary in restricting England to 165/9 in their allotted overs, Tilak Varma kept a cool head as wickets fell around him, and an unbeaten 72 off 55 from him proved to be enough for the team to take a 2-0 series lead.
For the unversed, Suryakumar Yadav, the captain of India, won his second consecutive toss of the series, and decided to field first once again, this time in Chennai. In the first over, Arshdeep Singh got the better of Phil Salt, which was the case in the first T20I in Kolkata earlier in the week, to give India a perfect start in the second T20I of the series before Ben Duckett lost his wicket cheaply to local boy Washington Sundar.
Varun Chakravarthy got into his work from where he left off in the previous game, bamboozling Harry Brook with a wrong’un, and a couple of overs later, England captain Jos Buttler was dismissed for a well-made 45 off 30 with two fours and three maximums on the bowling of Axar Patel. As the Indian captain kept changing the bowlers regularly, England kept losing their wickets regularly, but still they were able to get up to 165/9 in their allotted 20 overs after some lusty blows from Jamie Smith and Brydon Carse.
Axar Patel and Varun Chakravarthy picked up a couple of wickets each in their spells, while the likes of Arshdeep Singh, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, and Abhishek Sharma took a wicket each. In the pursuit of the 166-run target, India lost both their openers Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma to the extra pace from Jofra Archer and Mark Wood respectively before Brydon Carse got Suryakumar Yadav chopping it on to his stumps in the power play stage, to let England get a foot in the door.
Dhruv Jurel and Hardik Pandya were back in the pavilion cheaply, leaving India in some trouble at 78/5 in 9.1 overs before Washington Sundar joined Tilak Varma, and they shared a 38-run stand for the sixth wicket, to keep India in the contest. Sundar scored 26 runs in just 19 balls with three fours and one maximum, to take some pressure off the set batter Varma at the other end for the Indian cricket team.
India kept losing more wickets, but Tilak Varma scored an unbeaten 72 off 55 with four fours and five sixes, to help his team get across the line with four balls to spare.