India and Australia after the Test Series, started playing the ODI series, a dress reharsal for ICC World Cup 2023. India has been on a high as they did not lose a bilateral ODI series at home from past 4 years. They did not lose a bilateral series in any format for 26 consecutive series at home. Australia has ended that streak. The last time also India had a consecutive 18 series wins before losing to Australia. India lost only 3 series at home among total 49 series and all came against Australia.
Australia won the toss and chose to bat first. They understood the pitch will spin even under lights and took the right decision. David Warner has been included in the team but he did not open the batting. Mitchell Marsh (47) and Travis Head (33) gave a very aggressive start to Australia innings against India pacers. Hardik Pandya (3/44) sent back Travis Head and Steve Smith (0) quickly, to bring India back into the contest. He also bowled Mitchell Marsh to put Australia in trouble.
David Warner (23), Marnus Labuschagne (28), Alex Carey (38), Marcus Stoinis (25), Sean Abbott (26), Ashton Agar (17) helped Australia. They have put up decent total 269 all-out, on board even though they consistently lost wickets. Kuldeep Yadav (3/56), Axar Patel (2/57), Mohammed Siraj (2/37) took wickets for India. With a 270 run total to chase India, started aggressively with Rohit Sharma (30) going for his shots.
Shubman Gill (37) made handsome runs at the other end. But both gave away their wickets. Virat Kohli (54) and KL Rahul (32) found it difficult to accelerate against a spinning ball. Hardik Pandya (40) looked in free flow but he did not find support as Suryakumar Yadav again got out for a first ball duck. India could not find a good partnership to take them home. They always looked to be in the chase but pressure due to Steve Smith captaincy and spinning ball made India batsmen go for unnecessary shots.
Australia won the match by 21 runs as India got bowled out for 248 in 49.1 overs. Adam Zampa (4/45), Ashton Agar (2/41), Marcus Stoinis (1/43) and Sean Abbott (1/50) took wickets consistently for Australia. Some of those wickets credit goes to Steve Smith for his brilliant field placing and captaincy. Australia won the ODI series by 2-1 and India won Test Series by 2-1. Adam Zampa got Player of the Match and Mitchell Marsh won Player of the Series awards.
India captain Rohit Sharma admitted that they did not bat well. He supported Suryakumar Yadav stating that he played only 3 balls in the series and it is unfortunate. He called it a bad phase and he should be given chances to prove. IPL 2023 is going to start in few days and India cricketers are getting ready for it and World Test Championship Finals in June.
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