Twitter reactions on Vijay Shankar’s double-wicket last over: Twitter was elated as the second ODI witnessed a tense finish.
During the second ODI of the ongoing Australia’s tour of India at Nagpur, India defeated Australia by eight runs in a tense finish to go 2-0 up in the five-match series. All-rounder Vijay Shankar stole the limelight as his last-over heroics won the match for India.
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Chasing a 251-run target, the visitors had the upper hand at the halfway mark. Their opening pair in captain Aaron Finch and batsman Usman Khawaja sharing an 83-run stand for the first wicket had increased their chances of leveling the series 1-1.
The equation was eventually reduced to Australia requiring 30 runs off the last five overs. With fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah dismissing Nathan Coulter-Nile (4) and Pat Cummins (0) in the same over, the match partially turned into India’s favour.
Australia scored seven runs off the next Mohammad Shami over which reduced the equation to 21 runs from the last three overs. It was at this time that India captain Virat Kohli had to decide to continue with his fast bowlers or bowl the one over of either one out of Vijay Shankar or Kedar Jadhav.
With Kohli opting to go for the first option, a sensible Marcus Stoinis was at the helm of things when Australia gave the impression of playing down the two overs from Bumrah and Shami.
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Until the last ball of these overs, Australia had only scored six runs. With Australia off-spinner Nathan Lyon scoring a boundary off the last ball, the equation was reduced to 11 runs in the last over.
Vijay Shankar changes the game
Another massive twist came in the match when Shankar found Stoinis wanting in front of the stumps on the first ball of the last over. Having played an exceptional hand in the Australian innings, Stoinis went back after scoring 52 (65) with the help of four fours and a six.
If this wasn’t enough, Shankar bowled Australia leg-spinner Adam Zampa on the third ball of the over to win the match for India.
Earlier, Finch had won the toss and put the hosts in to bat. Despite Kohli scoring his 40th ODI century, India ended up scoring a below par 250-10 in 48.2 overs. Before getting out, Kohli had scored 116 (120) with the help of 10 fours. With bowling figures of 9-2-29-4, Australia fast bowler Pat Cummins was the pick of their bowlers.
Given the cliffhanger that the match was, it ended up receiving numerous exciting responses on social media platform Twitter.
