India vs Windies 2018, 2nd T20I: Unnoticed things from the match

International cricket returned to Lucknow after 24 long years and the fans were treated to a Rohit Sharma special. In the second T20I against West Indies, stand-in skipper Rohit Sharma struck a record fourth T20I century (most by any player in this format) as he led India to a 71-run victory.

The Mumbai opener struck 111 in 61 balls as he batted through and took India to a superb first innings score. Shikhar Dhawan contributed with a 41-ball 43 while KL Rahul who came in at No. 4 finished off the innings with a very fluent 24-ball 26 to help India get to 195 in the first innings. None of the Windies bowlers were spared as they let off the advantage after a slow start (India were 11/0 after the first 3 overs).

The Windies batsmen who were failed in the first T20I continued their dismal show as they were reduced to 124/9 in their 20 overs. Once again, none of the batsmen got going as all the Indian bowlers contributed well. India registered their first bilateral series win over the Windies and extended their T20I unbeaten run to 9 series.

Thus, let’s take a look back at some of the unnoticed things from this second T20I in Lucknow. You could have easily missed some of these.

#5 Krunal Pandya bowls a bouncer

Spinners are generally not known to bowl bouncers and we’ve rarely seen any. However, in this game, Krunal Pandya did the unthinkable as he bowled a fast bumper in his third over.

On the fourth ball of his third over, Pandya banged one in middle of the pitch and it caught Carlos Braithwaite by surprise. He ducked under it and Dinesh Karthik tried his level best to collect it but his efforts went in vain as the ball raced away for four byes. This is not the first time, Krunal has bowled a bouncer. He tried it before in an ‘A’ game against England earlier this year.

Krunal definitely surprised everyone along with the keeper as Dinesh Kartik also looked had no clue of what was coming.

#4 Rohit Sharma's catching

By all means, it was Rohit Sharma's day in Lucknow. He just didn't put a foot wrong. He excelled in every single department (batting, fielding and captaincy). While his record fourth T20I ton was one the biggest talking points, his captaincy has been pretty underrated.

However, there's something that has gone under the radar and that has been Rohit Sharma's catching. The 31-year-old opener has been brilliant for India, especially in the slips cordon. He was excellent in the ODI series and now, he has taken that catching form forward in the T20s as well. In this game, he took a couple of very good catches.

The first one was a sharp catch at slip off Kuldeep Yadav. Darren Bravo got a thick edge which flew off the bat but Rohit Sharma plucked it out of thin air to give the chinaman his first wicket.

His second catch came late in the innings when Dinesh Ramdin flicked one towards square-leg off Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rohit timed his jump to perfection to take another good catch. He took another catch towards the end of the innings as he finished with 3 catches in the game.

#3 Most 100+ stands in T20Is

Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have been one of the most prolific opening pairs in international cricket in the last few years. Though their success has largely come in ODI cricket, they haven't lagged behind in T20s as well. Time and again, they've come up with dominating performances, just like they did in this second T20I at Lucknow.

They shared a superb 123-run stand giving India a solid platform. They started slowly but picked up the pace and were relentless once they got their eye in. This hundred partnership was their third in T20Is - which is the joint most by any pair in the shortest format. Rohit Sharma has also shared three century stands with Virat Kohli while Martin Guptill has shared three each with Kane Williamson and Colin Munro and the pair of David Warner and Shane Watson is the only other pair with three century stands.

#2 Only 11 runs in the first three overs

After Carlos Braithwaite won the toss and inserted India into bat, the Windies bowlers were right on the money at the start of the innings. Oshane Thomas who was impressive in the last game opened the bowling and started things off with a maiden.

Keemo Paul backed it up with a 7-run over. Thomas bowled another excellent over as he conceded just 4 runs and India's score read 11/0 after the first three overs. Rohit Sharma had crawled to 4 in 11 balls and Dhawan had made 5 off 8 deliveries. However, once Rohit Sharma got the first boundary of the game (first ball of the fourth over), the momentum shifted and the Rohit-Dhawan duo started the carnage. They scored 112 runs in the next 11 overs before Dhawan was dismissed for 43 (propelling India to 123/1 in 14 overs).

Rohit Sharma continued the carnage as his fourth T20I hundred helped India to finish with an above-par score of 195 in their 20 overs.

#1 Rohit Sharma second highest run-getter in T20Is

The stand-in T20I skipper Rohit Sharma has been in terrific form in recent times. After scoring two hundreds in the ODI series, he once again came to the part in the second T20I as he struck his fourth T20I ton.

In the process, he broke numerous records and one of the most unnoticed ones was that he became the second highest run-getter in T20I cricket. At the start of the game, he was ranked fifth on this list of most runs in T20Is. However, he first went past Virat Kohli's tally of 2102 runs before going past Brendon McCullum (2190 runs) and Shoaib Malik (2140 runs). When he finished the innings (111 not out), he sat on the second place. He is now just 68 runs behind Martin Guptill who tops the list of most runs in T20I cricket. And the stand-in skipper has a chance to overtake the Kiwi opener in the final T20I.