2nd T20I: Kohli and Co's reputation at stake as series defeat lurks

India skipper Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni (left) and Rishabh Pant at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore yesterday. Pics/AFP, PTI

This two-match T20I series is easily the most inconsequential one going around in the cricketing world. Commerce and not cricket is what is driving it but then no one's complaining, save perhaps for the Indian captain Virat Kohli. Prior to the opener in Visakhapatnam, Kohli had said more ODIs would have made sense ahead of the World Cup. But then even Kohli has only so much say in these things. It's the television people who make all the rules these days and given the kind of money they pour in, you can't really grudge them their pound of flesh.

Of course the flip side of the huge bids that broadcasters of Indian cricket are forced to make to secure the rights are the excessive advertisements the viewer has to endure between overs and when wickets fall. During the first game at Vizag, for the viewer many of the overs started with the bowler half-way into his run-up. It has turned off one group of people so much that they opted to buy expensive tickets and make their way to the Chinnaswamy Stadium here for the second and final T20I, rather than gather at someone's home like they had got used to doing.

The two teams themselves, blissfully unaware of all this, spent considerable time gearing up for the game on match eve. The Indians, aware that they can, at best, draw the series, have their huge home reputation to defend while for the Aussies, who in recent times have lost more than they have won in India, it's a great opportunity to pull off a triumph and head into the more relevant five-match ODI series with some real confidence.

The closeness of the first game, one which should have been won easily by the visitors, has served to infuse some life into the series. And there are the individual stakes, like with India's KL Rahul who should get another chance to show himself, the team and selectors, in that order, that he belongs at the highest level. So with Australian captain Aaron Finch, who is doing everything but leading from the front. As and when David Warner comes back, Finch wouldn't want to be the one left out, so runs are imperative for him, not so much the result in such a series.

2015
The year India last lost a T20I series at home, 0-2 to the Proteas

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