MS Dhoni’s resting for the final two matches provided opportunities for others in India’s middle order, but they were far from taken.
Teams:
India:–
- Rohit Sharma
- Shikhar Dhawan
- Virat Kohli(c)
- Rishabh Pant(wk)
- Kedar Jadhav
- Vijay Shankar
- Ravindra Jadeja
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Kuldeep Yadav
- Mohammed Shami
- Jasprit Bumrah
Australia:-
- Usmn Khawaja
- Aaron Finch(c)
- Peter Handscomb
- Marcus Stoinis
- Glenn Maxwell
- Aston Turner
- Alex Carey(wk)
- Jhye Richardson
- Pat Cummins
- Nathan Lyon
- Adam Zampa
Australia won the five match odi series 3-2. Australia bowled out India for 237 runs, won by 35 runs.
Australia won the toss and choose to bat. They started well. In form Usman Khawaja scored his second century of the series to help Australia past 272/9.
India’s chase, and defeat from 2-0 up for the first time in history, opened more than a few questions for Kohli and the coach Ravi Shastri, not least team balance after only three specialist batsmen were selected. With Shikhar Dhawan and Kohli dismissed cheaply, Rohit Sharma seemed weighed down by the task before him, twice offering chances spurned off Zampa’s bowling before charging wildly to be well stumped by Alex Carey.
A decade ago Australia won an ODI series in India despite a surfeit of injuries. Numerous stronger sides have left empty handed since then, so it was with a great deal of satisfaction that Aaron Finch’s team sealed this victory from 0-2 down, the first time an Australian side had ever done so in 50-over matches, with a disciplined, determined and tactically astute defence of 272 in Delhi.
Being 0-2 down is something the Australians have become used to in more than one sense over the past year, missing the names of David Warner and Steven Smith from their team sheet as a result of the Newlands scandal.
India had not lost any ODI series at home since going down 3-2 to South Africa in October 2015. That result arrived only a matter of months after Australia won the previous World Cup so was not considered a major reverse. However this defeat, on the cusp of the IPL, has left India with precious little time to iron out an increasing number of wrinkles. By contrast the Australians can now look forward to a further five matches against Pakistan.
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