India vs Australia 2017, 2nd ODI: 5 things we learnt from the match
India outbowled Australia on a two-paced Eden Gardens wicket to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match ODI series. Kuldeep Yadav was the man of the moment as he picked up the third hat-trick by an Indian in ODI cricket dismissing Matthew Wade, Ashton Agar and Pat Cummins off successive balls in the 33rd over.
Earlier, Kohli won the toss and opted to bat first on a tricky Eden wicket. Pat Cummins and Nathan Coulter-Nile bowled their hearts out but Virat Kohli and a free-flowing Ajinkya Rahane bailed India out. Rahane's run-out triggered a middle-order collapse from which India never quite recovered.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar made up for that with a sizzling opening spell that accounted for Hilton Cartwright and David Warner. Although Steven Smith and a rampant Travis Head helped resurrect Australia, they kept losing wickets regularly. Kuldeep then sealed the game with his hat-trick although Marcus Stoinis did his best to reduce the margin of defeat.
#5 Rahane only needs to touch the ball to send it to the cover boundary
Sourav Ganguly is often hailed as the God of the off-side. But today, Ajinkya Rahane showed that he isn't too far behind with some outrageous strokes through the cover boundary, mostly off mere pushes. Such was the kind of timing that Rahane exhibited today that he only needed to get bat on ball to send it to the off-side boundary.
26 of his first 27 runs came through the off-side with five of those racing for fours off pristine cover drives. Rahane appeared to have mastered the two-paced wicket as he stroked the ball around effortlessly even as Rohit Sharma and Kohli struggled to get their timings going. Unfortunately for Rahane, a mix-up with Kohli saw him walk back run- out, but not before he had compiled his 20th One Day International half-century.