India made it two in two in two after putting up a clinical show against the Netherlands at the Sydney Cricket Ground. In what seemed like a two-pace surface, the Indian batters got off to a cautious start before breaking free in the final overs to post 179. In reply, the Netherlands were restricted to 123/9. With two wins in as many games, India is now placed at the top of the points table.

Barring KL Rahul, who got out on 9, three of the top-four batters got half-centuries, with Virat Kohli carrying on his fine form as he scored an unbeaten 62. Rahul struggled to time his shots and was pinned leg-before by Paul van Meekeren in the third over. He wanted to take a review but was advised against doing so by his captain Rohit Sharma. The replay, however, showed had Rahul taken the review, he would have survived, since the ball was missing the leg stump.

But that didn’t stop people from trolling Rahul for yet another failure in T20 World Cup games. In the first match against Pakistan, Rahul got out cheaply to Shaheen Shah Afridi.

After Rahul got out, Rohit combined with Virat Kohli to add 73 runs for the second wicket. Rohit, however, was lucky to be reprieved twice in his innings – by Tim Pringle on both occasions – before notching his half-century. He ran out of luck when his attempted flick was ensnared by Colin Ackermann.

Suryakumar Yadav then came to the crease, and made the surface look easy for batting with his crisp strokeplays. His aggressive game allowed Kohli to bat calmly in the death overs. Suryakumar raced away to his half-century with a six against Logan van Beek on the last ball of the over.

Chasing 180 against the Indian bowling attack was always going to be a challenge for the Netherlands, and it didn’t take long for their batting order to crumble under pressure. Bhuvneshwar Kumar drew the first blood by getting rid of Vikramjeet Singh, and then Axar Patel got the better of Max O’Dowd to reduce them to 20/2. They never recovered from the early setbacks, and had it not been for a couple of missed stumping chances from Dinesh Karthik, they would have folded under 100.

Lead Image: KL Rahul/Twitter