From Two Overs for 30 to 3 for 24: Nitish Kumar Reddy and Sanju Samson Seal the Series in Delhi

Two nights ago, Nitish Kumar Reddy's two overs cost 30 runs, and our review of the first T20I said his was the one line on India's card a captain would want to look at again. Shreyas Iyer looked at it, gave him the ball, and got back 3 for 24 from three overs and a player-of-the-match award. Cricket rarely offers a second chance this quickly, and it offers it even more rarely at the same ground.

Afghanistan, put in again, made 159 for 8. India chased it in 14.5 overs, Sanju Samson hitting 57 from 22 balls, and won by seven wickets. Rashid Khan took all three wickets that fell — an answer of sorts to the critics after his wicketless first match — but the series went with them. India lead 2-0 with one to play.

A target of 160 at the Jaitley is a total that asks for patience. India declined the invitation. They had 50 on the board in 4.4 overs, Samson reached his fifty in 20 balls, and the powerplay ended at 82 without loss. Samson's 57 contained seven fours and four sixes; Abhishek Sharma, who made 82 from 32 in the first match, was the quieter partner this time with 39 from 19 — which, with four sixes of his own, tells you how loud the evening was.

Rashid Khan broke the stand in the seventh over and then struck again in the same over: 88 for 1 became 99 for 2, both openers gone. He added Shreyas Iyer for 11 at 123 for 3 in the eleventh. For a few overs, the chase had a pulse. Ishan Kishan made sure it did not last — 38 not out from 23 with two sixes — and with Tilak Varma, unbeaten on 15, added 40 in 25 balls to finish it in the fifteenth over.

Nitish Kumar Reddy's three wickets set the target at a size India could attack; the bowling as a unit deserves the credit for keeping it there. Jasprit Bumrah bowled the only maiden of the match and conceded 25 from four overs. Axar Patel gave 28 from four. Arshdeep Singh took two wickets.

Rahmanullah Gurbaz went for a three-ball duck in the second over — his second nought in as many matches, after a two-ball duck in the first T20I. Afghanistan did well to steady it. Ibrahim Zadran, with six fours in his 37, and Sediqullah Atal added 51 for the second wicket, and at 51 for 1 in the ninth over the platform the top order had failed to build in the first T20I was finally there.

It lasted twelve balls. Afghanistan lost three wickets for 16 runs between 8.1 and 10.1 overs — 51 for 1 became 67 for 4 — and when they slipped again from 96 for 5 to 100 for 6 in the fifteenth over, a total of 180 was out of the conversation. What remained was the lower order's doing: from 100 for 6, Afghanistan scored 59 in the last 35 balls. Rashid Khan's 28 from 16 and Mohammad Nabi's 20 from 14 made 159 respectable, and Noor Ahmad's 7 not out from three balls, with a six, added a late flourish.

With the ball, the numbers are stark. Rashid took 3 for 36; Noor Ahmad conceded 14 from two overs. The other four bowlers used — Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Mohammad Nabi, Azmatullah Omarzai and Fazalhaq Farooqi — bowled nine overs for 112 runs without a wicket. Mujeeb and Nabi's six overs between them cost 81.

For the second match in a row at this ground, the side that chose to field won comfortably. The surface was true enough for India to score at eleven an over in the chase, but it still paid tight bowling: Bumrah's maiden, Noor Ahmad's two overs for 14 and Rashid's three wickets all came on the same strip that went for eleven an over elsewhere. Afghanistan's collapse through the ninth and tenth overs, like their top-order collapse two nights earlier, was a batting failure rather than a pitch that turned treacherous.

The one pattern worth noting across both matches: Afghanistan have now been three down before the end of the tenth over twice in succession, and India have chased both totals down with more than five overs to spare.

Three overs, 24 runs, three wickets. The cleanest way to measure what Nitish Kumar Reddy did is against himself: two nights earlier he bowled two overs for 30 and looked, on the card at least, like the most vulnerable member of India's attack. Here he shared the match's best wicket haul with Rashid Khan, at a cheaper price, and his three strikes were the main reason Afghanistan's 51 for 1 became 159 for 8 rather than something India would have had to respect.

It is also a quiet vindication of selection patience. A bowling all-rounder who is dropped after one expensive spell never gets the chance to show the other side of the ledger. Reddy got the chance, and took it.

We leaned towards India, "but with less certainty than the first match." India won by seven wickets with 31 balls left, so the lean was right and the uncertainty was not needed. We also said both captains would be likely to field first and that the conditions favoured batting second; India won the toss, fielded, and chased with ease.

We set Afghanistan two conditions for victory. Rashid Khan conceding fewer than 28 runs with two wickets: he took three, but for 36. Gurbaz giving them a powerplay platform of 50-plus: he made a three-ball duck and Afghanistan were 41 for 1 after six overs. One of two half-met is not a winning formula, and it was not.

The misses need saying plainly. For the second preview running, we named Mayank Yadav as India's player to watch, and for the second match running he did not bowl. Our Afghanistan player to watch, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, made 0 from 3. We cast Tilak Varma as India's anchor; the top order left him only 14 balls and 15 runs to finish things off. We did flag Iyer's record against leg-spin, and Rashid dismissed him for 11 — but the player of the match, Nitish Kumar Reddy, was not mentioned in our preview at all.

India have won the series with a match to spare, and the 3rd T20I at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on September 17 becomes a question of what they want to learn. Varun Chakaravarthy did not bowl in this match, Ravi Bishnoi returned 1 for 32 from his four overs, and Mayank Yadav has not bowled in either match. A dead rubber is where those questions usually get answered.

For Afghanistan the final match is about pride and about Rashid. He went wicketless in the first T20I and heard a former India captain call him past his prime; he took all three wickets that fell in the second. What Afghanistan need around him is a top order that survives the first ten overs with more than one wicket in hand, and a support attack that does not concede 112 runs in nine wicketless overs.