India captain Rohit Sharma cracked a magnificent century in Cuttack on Sunday that helped guide his team to a four-wicket win over England.
The hosts had been set 305 by England and reached the target with 33 balls to spare to secure a win that also gives India an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.
A superb 136-run opening partnership between Rohit and Shubman Gill put India on the road to victory, having also won the first game in Nagpur by four wickets.
“I was feeling good when I was batting, batting with Rohit makes it a lot easier,” said vice-captain Gill.
“The way Rohit took on the ball was good. The way he dominated the fast bowlers was great to watch from the non-striker's end.
“The odd ball was skidding a bit but overall it was a good wicket to bat on.
“Honestly, the plan was simple. Play according to the ball and once you were set, try to play big and place it where you can.”
Gill had top-scored with 87 in the opening game and contributed 60 this time round before being bowled by Jamie Overton after a 52-ball knock.
But Gill was outshone by Rohit at Barabati Stadium who reached his 32nd ODI century off 76 balls by whacking Adil Rashid over long on for six.
He eventually fell for 119 when Rashid took a smart catch at midwicket off a Liam Livingstone full toss. Rohit's knock came off 90 balls, including 12 fours and seven sixes and was his first century for India in 11 months.
Despite losing Virat Kohli for just five, there was also important contributions by Shreyas Iyer (43) and Axar Patel (41 not out), with Ravindra Jadeja (11 not out) scoring the winning runs lashing a four through the covers off Joe Root.
Ravindra Jadeja took 3-35 with the ball while Mohammed Shami, Harshit Rana, Hardik Pandya and Varun Chakravarthy all chipped in with a wicket each.
Liam Livingstone (41), Gus Atkinson (three) and Adil Rashid (14) were all run out for England.
“It was good, I really enjoyed being out there, scoring some runs for the team,” said player of the match Rohit. “Obviously it was an important game, the series on the line.
“I really broke it down into pieces, how I wanted to bat – an ODI is longer than a T20, it's a lot shorter than Test cricket but you still need to work out what you need to do at regular intervals. That was my focus.”
Earlier, the tourists had once again wasted a promising platform set by its openers after choosing to bat first.
After putting on 75 for the first wicket in the opening game of the series, Ben Duckett and Phil Salt this time produced an opening partnership of 81.
But once Duckett fell for 65, England once again failed to kick on despite all of their top six made it beyond 25 as the search for form under new white-ball coach Brendon McCullum goes on.
Joe Root was the only other player to reach his half-century (69 off 72 balls) with Harry Brook (31), captain Jos Buttler (34) and Livingstone all making starts but falling short of the all important big knock.
“We thought it looked a good wicket. We wanted to get runs on the board,” insisted Buttler, whose team were beaten 4-1 by India in the recent T20 series.
“Maybe it skidded on a bit but the opposition played well. Our guys at the start played well, played the power play brilliantly, but we needed another gear to kick on. Maybe 350 would have been defendable.
“I thought we did a lot of things well. We got in some nice positions with the bat. We just needed a few of us to catch fire and get up towards 350. Rohit played a terrific knock.”
The final match of the series in Ahmedabad on Wednesday is England's last before their Champions Trophy opener against Australia on 22 February. India start their tournament against Bangladesh in Dubai two days earlier.
