Big-name players Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma failed to make an impact on their return to the Indian Cricket Team as Australia beat India in the first of three ODIs of this series quite handily.
The match, which is the first Australia vs India match of this limited-overs tour, was played at the Optus Stadium in Perth. The match was played on a drop-in pitch and saw the home side win the toss and decide to bat first.
Some players were making their debut in this match. While Matt Renshaw and Mitchell Owen made their ODI debuts for the Aussies, Nitish Kumar Reddy made his debut in the format for India in this match.
Australia vs India: India Loses As Virat And Rohit Return To The Team
For the Indian Cricket Team, the pair of Rohit Sharma and team captain Shubham Gill came out to open the batting.
The two played out the first three overs, even hitting a boundary each in their time on the crease. But then, in the first over of the game, Josh Hazelwood bowled a hard-length delivery that moved away from the batter. Sharma edged the ball and was caught behind after scoring eight runs, 13/1.
This brought Virat Kohli to strike. However, the former Indian captain was not to last long on the pitch, as in the seventh over, he looked to drive an outside off ball but edged it out to a massive edge, and Virat was caught at backward point for a duck, 21/2.
The flow of wickets did not stop with the two veterans getting out. Captain Gill got out a couple of overs later, followed by vice-captain Shreyas Iyer being dismissed cheaply as well. At the end of 14 overs, the Men in Blue were struggling at 45/4.
Between these two wickets, it rained over the stadium. So when the match resumed, it was reduced to 35 overs a side.
The drizzle resumed soon after Iyer’s wicket. Another 20-minute stop meant the match was reduced to 32 overs per side. The rain returned about two overs later, and the game was reduced one last time, this time to 26 overs a side.
All this time, Axar Patel and KL Rahul were trying to rebuild the Indian innings. That did happen as the two took the score to 80 runs in 19 overs without losing any more wickets. However, in the 20th over, Acar looked to smack spinner Matthew Kuhnemann out of the park but was caught at long-on instead after making 31 off 38, 84/5.
KL Rahul hit two sixes in the next over and took India past the 100-run mark before being dismissed in the 25th over for 38 off 31. Before this, Washington Sundar had gotten out for cheap. In fact, India suffered a major collapse toward the end of their innings. At the end of their allotted 26 overs, Shubham Gill’s men had made 136/9.
Via the DLS method, it was calculated that Australia had to make 131 runs in 26 overs to win this match. Their opening duo of Travis Head and captain Mitchell Marsh took the crease and started attacking right from the first over.
However, after nine runs were scored in the first over, Arshdeep Singh got Head out in the very next over as the explosive opener got out at deep third man, making eight of five.
At this point, Marsh, along with the incoming Matthew Short, buckled down and started making runs at a decent pace. The two took Australia near the 50-run mark in seven overs before Short was caught at third man in the eighth, 45/2.
The next wicket would not come for at least seven more overs, in which time Marsh and wicketkeeper Josh Philippe took the Aussies to 99 runs before Philippe got out for 37 off 29.
With Australia cruising at this point, Mitchell Marsh and Matt Renshaw took the team home with relative ease in just 21.1 overs. The goats won the match by seven wickets and 29 balls to spare in the first Australia vs India ODI.
For his firm innings of 46* off 52, Australian Cricket Team captain Mitchell Marsh was named the Player of the Match.
And with this, India is already 1-0 down in this three-match ODI series. The next match will be played on Thursday, October 23, at the Adelaide Oval. The Men in Blue need to win that game to take the series into the third and final match of this Australia vs India series on Saturday, October 25, at the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground.
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