Kohli stayed on the crease till the end and scored 59 off 33 balls as India finished 184/3 in 20 overs. India’s best chase was 128 for 7 against New Zealand in Bangalore in July 2015, but Harmanpreet Kaur and Veda Krishnamurthy ensured that bar was raised by hauling in Australia women’s 140 for 5 with eight balls to spare.
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Steve Smith fell for 21, spooning a simple catch to Virat Kohli at mid-off from Jadeja’s bowling.
With this victory, India have clinched the 3-match Twenty20 series against Australia 2-0. As soon as the power play got over though, Ravindra Jadeja (2-32) was brought into the attack and things started happening, though not in India’s favour. Dhawan was the more fluent early in the innings and he too played some breathtaking shots. Indian openers Sharma and Dhawan put 97 runs on scoreboard together. While they regularly found the boundary – they hit 17 fours and five sixes – Dhawan in particular showed deft touch to hit the ball softly enough into gaps to get twos, as the boundary-riders had to sprint in to collect the ball, instead of ones.
Rohit and Dhawan reserved special treatment for James Faulkner. Rohit was then joined by the man in form Kolhi, and he started where he left in the first T20I.
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During the middle overs, Rohit and Kohli did not give the Australian bowlers any chance to settle down. However, an unfortunate bit of mis-communication saw Rohit being run out while attempting to go for a second run. MS Dhoni promoted himself up to No. 4 ahead of Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh, and started hitting the ball hard right from the start. He made 14 from 9 deliveries. Kohli got to his fifty with a boundary off the first ball, and proceeded to get three off the next two balls. For Australia Andrew Tye and Maxwell picked up one wicket each.
