Australia made a stunning comeback and trounced India by 10 wickets in the second ODI at the YS Rajasekhara Reddy Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam, on Sunday (March 19). Mitchell Starc broke Indian batters' back riding on a superb spell of 5/53 and bowled out the hosts for a paltry 117. Mitchell Marsh did the rest of the damage and with his blistering knock of 66 off 36 and wrapped up the match in mere 11 overs and handed India their biggest defeat in ODIs in terms of balls remaining (234).
Steve Smith-led Australia have now locked the series 1-1 and have pushed it to decider in Chennai on March 22. Meanwhile, Smith showered praise on the the hero of the match, Starc and Australia's openers who helped visitors clinch an emphatic victory. But the highlight of the match was Smith's superman catch that he took to dismiss Hardik Pandya. He took a leap towards his right at first slip to give Sean Abbott (3/23) a wicket.
That prompted Smith to be asked about whether it could be considered a ‘catch of the century’, but he appeared slightly bemused by the suggestion.
"I don't know about catch of the century. It was nice I held on today," he said at the post-match presentation.
"I had a couple of opportunities in the last game that were quite similar and they were just out of reach. I couldn't get my hand quite around it, but I was fortunate I was able to do that today. It was a big wicket, Hardik's an unbelievable player, so it was nice to hang on to it," he added.
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On matche's front Smith said,"It was a quick one – 37 overs for the game, you don't see that too often. I thought our bowlers were outstanding this afternoon. Mitchell Starc in particular with that new ball swinging it back down the line and putting them under early pressure."
"He complemented really well with the rest of our bowling group and it was a nice start to the day. It was one of those days when every time they nicked it, it went to hand. Fortunately we were on the right side of it," Smith added.
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