New Delhi: KL Rahul announced his return to form with a superb 71 off 47 deliveries even as all the other Indian batsmen struggled on a sticky wicket at Nagpur, helping India to post a reasonable total of 144/8 against England in the 2nd T20I.
Rahul appeared in no difficulty as he seamlessly moved towards a well compiled half-century, erasing doubts about his recent form.
Apart from Rahul’s brilliance the Indian innings was sort of a replay of the first T20I at Kanpur. England put India in and India had a decent beginning through captain Virat Kohli until Jordan came up with a well disguised slower one to put an end to Kohli’s cameo of 21.
The Indian innings came to halt as Moeen Ali put the brakes on the Indian middle order. Moeen Ali returned with impressive figures of 1 for 20 in his quota of 4 overs.
India would have been in all sorts of trouble if it wasn’t for Rahul. Rahul slammed 6 boundaries and 2 over it to get India out of jail, putting on a 56 run partnership with Manish Pandey.
When Rahul looked all set to give the Indian innings a grand finish, he smashed one straight to deep mid wicket off Stokes. India could not recover from that jolt as the innings nose dived after the dismissal of Rahul.
Chris Jordan was the pick of the bowlers for England as he picked up 3 wickets including the most important one of Kohli and bowled a superb last over by just giving away 5 runs.