India 294 for 5 (Pandya 78, Rohit 71, Rahane 70, Cummins 2-54) beat Australia 293 for 6 (Finch 124, Smith 63, Bumrah 2-52, Kuldeep 2-75) by five wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
© BCCI
Between January 2013 and the start of this series, India-Australia ODIs had produced an average first-innings score of 321. The first two ODIs bucked that high-scoring trend, with India defending 281 and then 252, but a belter of a pitch in Indore seemed set to catalyse a return to the old order. Coming back from a calf injury, Aaron Finch scored his eighth ODI hundred and put on 154 for the second wicket with Steven Smith to project visions of 350 into Australia’s minds.
But thanks to their wristspinners, and then their two expert death bowlers, India kept them to 293 for 6, taking five wickets and only conceding 77 in the last 14 overs. Australia didn’t get a sniff thereafter, as seventies of varying moods and tempos from Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane at the top of the order and Hardik Pandya at No. 4 led India to a series-clinching victory by five wickets, with 13 balls remaining. It was their ninth ODI win in a row, equalling their best ever sequence.
Rohit gave the chase its early fillip with an innings of gasp-inducing strokeplay. There were four sixes in his 62-ball 71, three of them off the quicks: a full one from Nathan Coulter-Nile lofted flat and straight, a bouncer from Pat Cummins hooked into the roof of the stands behind square leg, and a shot ball from Kane Richardson – a reaction to seeing the batsman jump out of his crease – muscled in the same direction and out of the stadium. With his partner in such form, Rahane simply slotted into his slipstream, giving him as much of the strike as he could, and helping himself whenever the bowlers dropped short or angled down the leg side. The two added 139 in 130 balls.
Both openers fell in the space of 12 balls, and it was Pandya, rather than the incumbent Manish Pandey, who walked in at No. 4. India needed 147 from 159 balls at that point, which called for stickability rather than the ball-striking Pandya is known for. And so he proceeded to play an innings befitting the situation. He gave Ashton Agar early warning of the lengths he wasn’t supposed to bowl, hitting the first balls of successive overs from the left-arm spinner over the long-on boundary, but otherwise simply looked to turn the strike over and build a partnership with Virat Kohli. He showed plenty of poise against the seamers, showing a full face to anything threatening the stumps, and it was Kohli, eventually, who got out playing a big shot at the end of a third-wicket stand of 56.
That wicket was immediately followed by that of Kedar Jadhav, who top-edged a slash off the fourth ball he faced. With India needing 88 off 88 at that point, Australia had the smallest of openings, but Pandya and Pandey closed the door with a fifth-wicket stand of 78 off 63 balls. In the end, 294 was simply not a challenging-enough target, and both captains suggested at the post-match presentation that this was a 330-340 pitch.
More to follow…
Karthik Krishnaswamy is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo