Miserable India lose series to inexperienced Australia

India lost an ODI at the Adelaide Oval for the first time in 17 years – since February, 2008 – when an inexperienced batting line-up dished out by Australia achieved the 265-run target set by India on a batting-friendly pitch.

Since losing an ODI by 50 runs to Australia in Feb, 2008, India had won three out of four ODIs, beating Pakistan (2015 World Cup), Sri Lanka (Feb, 2008) and Australia (2012) once each. One game against Sri Lanka ended as a No Result.

But this loss should hurt Indian cricket badly. For it marked the start of Shubman Gill’s captaincy on a losing note. The first two ODIs of this series are his first as captain.

India had a poor start to their innings with skipper Gill and veteran Virat Kohli getting dismissed early. Kohli got his second duck in a row.

Rohit Sharma (73 off 97 balls) and Shreyas Iyer (61 off 77 balls) built a 118-run partnership but the time consumed by Sharma to settle in was too much. At one point in time, he was going at a strike rate of about 47. It was only when medium-pacer Mitchell Owen, playing just his second ODI came on, that he found the pace to his liking and hit a couple of sixes in an over. Prior to that, his declining reflexes were finding the faster bowlers tougher to negotiate.

He tried to make up for the slow start but couldn’t do better than the 75.26 strike rate. That set India back although you can say that they had laid some platform. KL Rahul struggled to get going too and it was left to Axar Patel (44 off 41 balls) and Harshit Rana (24 off 18 balls) to help India reach their eventual score of 264/9 in 50 overs. There was no Pat Cummins by the way.

A score of 260-odd was fine 25 years ago when Sourav Ganguly’s century helped India beat Pakistan at the same venue in a tri-series match but in this day and age, it looks very little even against an inexperienced Australia batting line-up.

Steve Smith has retired from ODIs while Marnus Labuschagne, Cameron Green are not there in the team.

The score proved so little and the bowling so uninspirational that even after India removed Mitchell Marsh (11), Travis Head (28) and Alex Carey (9) for low scores, young guns like Cooper Connolly (61 not out off 53 balls) and Mitchell Owen (36 off 23 balls) could smash the bowlers and take the home team to victory.

Matthew Renshaw chipped in with 30 off 30 balls and Matthew Short who had played just 16 ODIs prior to this one, scored 74 to set the Aussies on path to victory.

Aside from the loss, India came back with fitness worries too. Pace bowlers Harshit Rana and Arshdeep Singh suffered severe cramps and had to be treated on the field during Australia’s innings. Mind you, Adelaide weather isn’t hot so it throws a lot of questions on Indian bowlers’ fitness.

Tags : India, cricket, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Cooper Connolly, Mitchell Owen, Harshit Rana