If India’s victory in the first ODI against Zimbabwe was comprehensive, but their victory in the second ODI was not so much comprehensive, by the end of which KL Rahul and co would be wondering that they could have been far more fluent in this victory.
Nonetheless, India sealed the series in the second match of the series by winning with 5 wickets. It felt like India could have done better in the second ODI when compared to the first match.
Captain KL Rahul won the toss and elected to bowl first even though the conditions were not the same as the first match, India made one change by replacing Deepak Chahar with Shardul Thakur.
Siraj was right in the zone where the Indian bowlers were successful in the opening overs as India did not concede a single boundary inside the first seven overs. Siraj helped India claim their first wicket after all the pressure he created on the Zimbabwe batsman Takudzwanashe Kaitano who was caught behind by Sanju Samson with a brilliant catch.
It was a similar kind of game in the first ODI where the Zimbabwe batsman struggled to stand strong as the wickets fell apart at regular intervals, in the second ODI the case was the same and once again the Zimbabwe batsman struggled to stand up against the might Indian bowling side.
Shardul Thakur at the end of the innings managed to pick up three wickets for 38 runs with an economy of 5.40. In between Zimbabwe batsman looked comfortable and it looked like they were in a contest to score 200+ as Sean Williams tried to carry the innings forwards but was unable to do so and fell prey to the Deepak Hooda attack.
In the end, Zimbabwe managed to score 161 in 38 overs with more than 11 overs remaining. Every Indian bowler who bowled managed to pick up at least a wicket and stop Zimbabwe from scoring big runs.
With not a huge target on the board, KL Rahul promoted himself as the opener alongside Shikhar Dhawan but the promotion of KL Rahul for the opening spot did not last very long, where he played only 5 balls and was sent back to the pavilion with an lbw by Nyauchi. Shikhar Dhawan was once again seen scoring runs but did not last long enough where he scored 33 runs in 21 balls.
Then came Shubman Gill and Ishan Kishan, Gill played soft innings where he was unable to capitalize on his start as he was sent back to the pavilion after scoring 33 runs, Kishan was not able to bring out his best as he was gone for 6 runs.
Deepak Hooda and Sanju Samson took the responsibility to help India reach the target, Hooda and Sanju carried the innings brilliantly, where Sanju scored an amazing 43* runs from 39 delivers helping India win the match and take the series home with one game remaining.
This was yet another dominant performance from the Indian side winning the match by five wickets with more than 24 overs left to play. Now after taking the lead in the series India will look to claim victory in the third match and the final match of the series will be played on 22 August Monday.
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