Despite putting on a dominant performance in the third and final match, the Indian Cricket Team’s series against the Aussies was a disappointment. The three-match Australia vs India ODI series saw the six-time world champions win the trophy with a 2-1 result.
Despite being the most dominant international cricket side this year, India lost their first series this year in a format where they tend to be quite phenomenal. So, what went wrong here?
This series saw the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma don the Indian blue for the first time in quite a long time. Despite that, India had to suffer a loss. Today, we will look at three things that went wrong for the ICT, leading them to lose the ODI series to Australia.
Australia vs India: 3 Reasons IND Lost ODI Series To AUS
3) Drop the Catch, Drop the Match
This point focuses on the second match of this series, played at the Adelaide Oval, and has been highlighted by team captain Shubman Gill as the biggest reason India lost that game.
The Men in Blue batted first and put up a respectable total of 264 runs, especially seeing how the surface behaved on the day. However, while defending said total, India dropped three big catches. First was opener Travis Head, who was dropped by Nitish Kumar Reddy in the first over of the chase. And while Head did not score a lot of runs on that day, his 28 runs gave Australia a steady start.
The more costly were the next two dropped catches, as the Indian fielders dropped Matt Short, who was named the Player of the Match for his 74 off 78, twice. First came in the 16th over, when Short was at 24 off 20 and India desperately needed a wicket, as Axar Patel at point dropped a catch that he should have held on to.
Then, in the 29th over, after the Aussie had already reached the 50-run mark. His wicket, though, would have been vital at this stage. However, after a delivery by Washington Sundar, Mohammad Siraj puts down a sitter.
By the time Matt Short got out in the 36th over, the score was 187/5. But by then, Cooper Connolly had settled and would go on to take the team home. So India literally dropped the match, along with the catches in that particular game.
2) Veteran batters struggle on wetter pitches.
While the last ODI might have gone gangbusters for the superstar Indian batting duo of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, the previous matches told a different story, especially for Kohli.
In the first match, Rohit Sharma was India’s first wicket to fall, making just eight off 14. Then in the second match, while the former Indian Cricket Team captain did make 73 off 97, he did struggle a lot in the early proceedings, barely making any runs on the first 30 balls he faced. However, to be fair, every Indian batter struggled against the fire that the Aussie bowlers threw at the start of that innings.
The situation was way worse for Virat Kohli. While he did go on to make an unbeaten 74 in the final match, the first two saw him make two ducks in a row. While his departure in the second game could be explained away by a brilliant ball by Xavier Bartlett, his dismissal in the first was a classic Kohli wicket, him playing a ball outside off and getting caught.
Blame should also go to captain Shubman Gill, who made 19 runs combined in the first two matches.
But why did the Indian batters struggle so much in the first two ODIs? Well, that is because of the nature of the pitch. Both the artificial surface in Perth and the natural one in Adelaide were damp. The first match was affected massively by rain, and so, the track retained a lot of moisture and became troublesome for the side batting first, which was India.
Then, in the second match, while it didn’t rain much during the match, it had been pouring for the past few days, and reportedly, the ground staff was still attempting to dry it less than an hour before the game.
1) Flavourless pace without Bumrah
Jasprit Bumrah will return to the Indian Cricket Team for the upcoming five-match T20I series against Australia, but he did miss the ODI one, and it showed. The Indian pace attack just didn’t look the same without their ace.
However, there are still world-class bowlers here. The likes of Mohammed Siraj and Arshdeep Singh have proven themselves at the highest level, Harshit Rana has a lot of international experience, and Nitish Kumar Reddy has shown glimpses of brilliance with the ball.
However, in the first ODI, which was significantly shortened, none of them could put a plug on the run flow, all four conceding at an economy rate of over four on the same pitch where Mitchell Starc kept it under four and Josh Hazelwood under three.
But then, in the second match, while Arshdeep Singh did well and Siraj had a passable evening, Harshit Rana had a night to forget, conceding 59 runs in just eight overs at an economy of 7.38 and taking no wickets. Reddy too conceded 24 in just three overs.
This point is highlighted by how, when the Indian pace attack did well, the team won the third ODI. In this game, Rana bowled his career-best spell of 4/39, while Mohammed Siraj did not concede as many runs. There was still an outlier in Prasidh Krishna, who conceded 52 in just seven overs, but his slack was picked up well by Harshit Rana.
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