Kolkata: A sensational hat-trick from Kuldeep Yadav, saw India cruise past Australia to take a 2-0 lead in the ongoing ODI series. Set to chase a competitive target of 253 at the Eden Gardens the Aussies piled up for 202 as India registered a comfortable victory of 50 runs.
Kuldeep Yadav achieved a rare feat as he became the 5th Indian to achieve a hattrick and the third Indian to do so in the ODI’s after Chetan Sharma and Kapil Dev. The other two Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan achieved the hattricks in the test format.
This victory also ensured India’s 8th successive ODI victory as the best remains to be 9 – which was from Nov 2008- Feb 2009.
Australia lost both their openrs early as Cartwright and Warner departed for 1 each. While skipper Steve Smith and Travis Head took the reins of the innings as they scored 59 and 39 respectively. Hard hitting Maxwell too had a bad day when he was sent back to the pavilion after just 14 runs.
A slight glimmer of hope was instilled among the Aussies when Stoins started hitting hard. He remained not on 62 with 3 huge sixes. However he didn’t get a chance to build a strong partership as the other batsmen fell like a pack of cards.
Kuldeep Yadav’s magic spell saw Mathew Wade, Ashton Agar and Pat Cummins becoming his victims.
An all round display form the Men in blue saw India winning the game as the bowlers did a fantastic job. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yadav scalped 3 wickets each while Hardik Pandya and Yuzvendra Chahal bagged 2 wickets each.