Indian opener Rohit Sharma struck a 52 ball 43 during the second ODI between India and Australia at the Adelaide Oval on Tuesday to get India off to a flying start in a stiff run chase of 299. The dashing right hander put on a 47 run stand with Shikhar Dhawan for the opening wicket and followed it up with a 54 run stand with Indian skipper and man of the match Virat Kohli for the second wicket.
His knock of 43 included two fours and two sixes which saw him emerge as the new sixer king across all formats of the game. With his two sixes in the match, Rohit now holds the record for the most number of sixes across all formats of the game. He now has 89 sixes against Australia across formats, one more than Chris Gayle, who has struck 88 sixes against England.
The Indian opener who hit a 133 off 129 balls at SCG in a losing cause on the other night, was looking well set for yet another big score before falling prey to a loose shot off the bowling of Marcus Stoinis during the 16th over of India’s run chase. Stonis bowled a short ball to the first match centurion who went for the pull on the front foot but failed to time it as well as he would have liked to, handing over an easy catch to Peter Handscomb at deep mid wicket.
The outcome of the match however went in favour of the visitors, who managed to get over the line this time around with 4 balls to spare. Skipper Virat Kohli scored a magnificent 104 helped by worthy contributions from Rohit Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik and India went on to win the game by 6 wickets to level the three match series 1-1 with the decider to be played at the MCG on January 18.
