Nothing went right for India in their tour opener in Perth on Sunday. They lost the toss, then Rohit Sharma (8) and Virat Kohli (0) flopped and in the end their bowlers got spanked by Australia in a seven-wicket defeat.
With none of the top four contributing in Shubman Gill’s first game as ODI captain, India had an inauspicious start to their white-ball tour of Australia.
Four rain intervals during India’s stop-start innings reduced the game to 26-overs-a-side. Courtesy of KL Rahul (38 off 31 balls), Axar Patel (31 off 38 balls) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (19 not out off 11 balls), India somehow laboured to 136/9 on a lively Perth Stadium track.
In response, Australia lost Travis Head early in the second over, but stand-in skipper Mitchell Marsh (46 not out off 52 balls) anchored the run chase masterfully as the hosts comfortably reached the revised (DLS) target of 131 with 29 balls remaining.
Precisely, India just didn’t have enough runs on the board, and once again, the extra bounce and overall assistance for quicks led to the batting group’s undoing. The game was gone for India when they slipped to 45/4 in the 14th over, with skipper Gill and his deputy Shreyas Iyer falling cheaply down the leg side after the dismissals of former captains Rohit and Kohli.
Going into this game, a little bit of match practice could have helped both Rohit and Kohli. Had Rohit come off a few competitive matches before this ODI, it may have helped him deal better with that hard length from Josh Hazlewood.
For Kohli, the outside off-stump line brought about his downfall yet again, just as it did almost right through last season’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Mitchell Starc enticed him with one of those deliveries, Kohli took the bait with minimum footwork and was taken smartly at backward point.
The next game is at Adelaide Oval.