Virat Kohli’s Indian cricket team are on the cusp of a Twenty20 International series win against Australia after winning the first game by 11 runs at the Manuka Oval in Canberra. A win in Sydney will give them an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series and they are favorites to achieve it. The Indian cricket team has never lost a Twenty20 International in Sydney and Virat Kohli has hit two fifties at the venue in 2016 and 2018. However, if India win in Sydney on Sunday, they will achieve something special.
This will be their second Twenty20 International series win in Australia and it will extend their unbeaten run in the country ever since 2008, when they lost the one-off Twenty20 International in Melbourne. However, their second series win in T20Is in Australia will make them only the second nation in history to achieve this feat. Remarkably, Sri Lanka won three consecutive Twenty20 International series in Australia in 2010, 2012 and 2016. In fact, Australia lost five consecutive T20Is to Sri Lanka at home before breaking the rut in Adelaide.
South Africa and India are the other nations to win a Twenty20 International series, with these two nations becoming only the teams to win a series in all formats in Australia.
Yuzvendra Chahal on a special record
Yuzvendra Chahal created plenty of flutter in the Canberra Twenty20 International when he came on to bowl as a concussion substitute for Ravindra Jadeja after the all-rounder was hit on the helmet thanks to top-edging a bouncer from Mitchell Starc. Yuzvendra Chahal went on to take three wickets as Australia floundered and fell to a 11-run defeat.
With Chahal expected to be included in the starting line-up in Sydney, the Haryana legspinner is on the cusp of a special record. Yuzvendra Chahal needs two wickets to become the leading wicket-taker in Twenty20 Internationals for India. Currently, he is on 58 wickets from 43 matches while he is only one wicket behind Jasprit Bumrah who has 59 wickets in 50 games.
Chahal held the record for the best figures by an Indian bowler in Twenty20 Internationals when he took 6/25 against England in Bengaluru in 2017 but that record has now been broken by Deepak Chahar who took 6/7 against Bangladesh in Rajkot in 2019.
