IND vs AUS Man of the Match today: The Indian captain has won his first match award in this format this year.
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During the second T20I of Australia’s tour of India 2022 in Nagpur, India beat Australia by 6 wickets to remain alive in the series ahead of a series-decider in Hyderabad on Sunday.
Chasing a 91-run target in a eight-over contest, India sealed the chase with four balls remaining in the match as veteran batter Dinesh Karthik (10*) hit a six and four off Australia all-rounder Daniel Sams to once again justify his reputation of being a designated “finisher”.
Captain Rohit Sharma (46*) led from the front by playing some eye-catching boundaries. Having hit four fours and as many sixes during his 20-ball stay, Sharma batted at a strike rate of 230 to always keep his team in the match in spite of others not contributing as much as he would’ve expected.
Much like Sharma, his Australian counterpart in Aaron Finch (31) also caught the attention of the fans with four fours and a six. Australia wicket-keeper batter Matthew Wade (43*) generated impact for the second time in a row hitting four fours and three sixes at the Vidharbha Cricket Association Stadium tonight.
IND vs AUS Man of the Match today
With all other Indian bowlers leaking runs at an economy rate in excess of 10, all-rounder Axar Patel emerged as a game-changer with bowling figures of 2-0-13-2. Having opened the bowling with Hardik Pandya (0/10 and 9), Patel bowled at an economy rate of 6.5 despite bowling a powerplay over.
Patel, whose disciplined and simplistic lines and lengths earned him wickets of hard-hitting batters namely Glenn Maxwell (0) and Tim David (2), missed out on winning the Player of the Match by a narrow margin as Sharma bagged the award for the 12th time in his T20I career.
“I was quite surprised [because of his batting] as well. Didn’t expect to hit it like that. Glad it came off. For the last 8-9 months, I have been playing like that. You can’t really plan too much is such a shortened game,” Sharma told Star Sports during the post-match presentation ceremony.
