Samson, Abhishek and Reddy power India to series win

It was almost a replay of the first T20I. Shreyas Iyer won the toss for the 11th time in 12 international matches and asked Afghanistan to bat first. Afghanistan knew they needed an above-par score to be competitive, but the bowling was too good to let them do it without generous amounts of luck. Neither team enjoyed extraordinary luck, wickets fell whenever Afghanistan tried to force the issue, and, thanks only to a Rashid Khan cameo, they managed 159, three more than the first match.

In good batting conditions, on the small Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, 159 proved woefully short. This time the chase was even more convincing as both Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma came off amid confounding tactics from Afghanistan. Samson scored 57 off 21, his biggest score since the World Cup, and Abhishek took 39 off 19 to set up the win in just 14.5 overs.

With this, India sealed the series 2-0, with a match to spare.

Bumrah, Arshdeep set the tone

As in the first T20I, Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh were phenomenal with the new ball. Bumrah showed off a host of variations, including the yorker, in the first over, a maiden. After no runs off the first eight balls, Rahmanhullah Gurbaz understandably played a low-percentage shot, top-edging Arshdeep to mid-on for his second duck of the series.

Captain Ibrahim Zadran, who had to endure the Bumrah maiden, had to keep taking risks. Even though his mishits kept coming off, Afghanistan reached only 51 for 1 in eight overs.

Wickets start to fall

A wicket had always looked around the corner, but it came about when the batters upped the intent at the first sight of the fifth bowler, Nitish Kumar Reddy. Possibly the best connection that Zadran made ended up in the hands of deep midwicket to end the innings on 37 off 33.

Axar Patel should have got a fourth in the fourth but Bishnoi dropped a low catch from the last match's rescuer Azmatullah Omarzai. Axar had Omarzai caught in his last over but not before Omarzai and Darwaish Rasooli took 13 off the only Shivam Dube over.

Rashid fights

With the middle order all but gone, Iyer continued the strategy of bowling out his best bowlers before giving the 20th to one of the part-timers. Rashid didn't need the part-timers, though, as he both charged at and used the depth of the crease to take 10 and 16 off the 17th and 18th overs. However, he couldn't maximise the 20th over as Axar - who has had two catches dropped off him this series - took a lovely diving catch to send Rashid back for 28 off 16.

Samson, Abhishek put game to bed

For some reason, Afghanistan's best new-ball bowler Fazalhaq Farooqi, who didn't even need to bat and would have had little chance of injuring himself, didn't bowl until the 13th over.

With Rashid and Noor Ahmad preferring not to bowl in the powerplay, fingerspin and gentle medium pace of Omarzai were cannon fodder for Samson and Abhishek with just two fielders outside 30 yards.

It was Abhishek once again who did the early running, hitting the first two balls he faced for fours through square cover off Mujeeb Ur Rahman. The highlight of his knock were the three sixes he hit over long-on off the bowling of Mohammad Nabi, creating all the power himself.

Samson, who took nine balls to hit his first boundary, soon matched Abhishek shot for shot and then exceeded him. He took apart Omarzai, but his best shot too was the back-foot six over long-on off Nabi to end the powerplay at 82 for 0.

Rashid managed to get both of them out immediately after being hit for sixes, but it was too late by the time he came on to bowl let alone take the wickets. Ishan Kishan made sure there were no hiccups in the rest of the chase.