5 lessons India can take from their crushing 10-wicket defeat to Australia

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Image Courtesy: PTI/AP

India’s 5 match One Day International series against Australia started off with a disheartening defeat agains the visitors. In the first match at the Wankhede Stadium yesterday, Team India not only were all bowled out on 255 runs with still 5 balls left, they couldn’t defend their total against a swashbuckling partnership of the two Aussie openers David Warner and the skipper Aaron Finch, who vehemently dominated over the Indian bowling squad and chased down the target by the 38th over, without losing a single wicket. So, what can Virat Kohli and his squad learn from the crushing defeat?

Image Courtesy: PTI/AP
  • To produce a substantial total in the first innings:

Against a team like Australia in an ODI game, anything less than 300 runs in the first innings, i.e giving them an run per over target of atleast 6.0 is necessary. Unfortunately, the Men in Blues fell short of that by 45 runs, ending their innings with 255.

David Warner (left) and Aaron Finch (right) chased down the target with sheer brilliance. (Image Courtesy: BCCI/AFP)

The visitors won the toss and Finch opted to field first. While having the advantage of home soil, the Indian batsmen couldn’t match their oppositing’s bowling counterparts, except Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul, who scored 74 and 47 runs respectively. Unfortunately, none of the other hitters of the Indian batting order went past 30 runs each.

  • Not changing up the already effective batting order:

While Dhawan and Rahul were on a tussle for the opener spot alongside the team’s first choice Rohit Sharma, captain Kohli decided to do an experiment, and gave both of them a place in the squad However, the decision had backfired, as ICC’s 1st and 2nd ranked batsmen Kohli and Rohit both failed to produce an appreciable knock.

Dhawan and Rahul were the only ones managing to produce appreciable scores. (Image Courtesy: PTI)

While Rohit Sharma had an amazing spell in last month’s ODI series against West Indies, the absence of his regular partner Rahul on the 22 yards proved dertimental, as the Mumbaiker lost his wicket in the 5th over after just scoring 10 runs.

  • Virat Kohli to retain his spot in the batting order:

Virat Kohli, who is the top ranked batsman in ICC’s ODI batting rankings, was on high expectations from the supporters. But, the skipper moved down one spot in the batting order to 4th, giving his usual 1 down spot to Rahul.

The decision backfired, as the 31 year old managed to scored only 16 runs, before getting caught and bowled by Adam Zampa. In a high tension game such as yesterday, the skipper himself needed to retain his batting order spot to be able to face more deliveries.

Virat Kohli left the pitch after just 16 runs. (Image Courtesy: AP)
  • An improved performance from the middle order:

After captain Kohli lost his wicket in the 32nd over, all the following Indian batsmen were unsuccessful to rack up the total. The young and talented Shreyas Iyer found himself in the mud after leaving for the dugout with only 4 runs to his name, and Rishab Pant, Ravindra Jadeja failed to lengthen the appreciable effort earlier from the Dhawan and Rahul duo.

Pant (left) and Jadeja (right) were expected to perform better on the 22 yards. (Image Courtesy: TOI/PTI)
  • A proper defending of the score from the Indian bowling squad:

Despite receiving numerous praises from pundits and supproters of the cricketing fandom, all of Team India’s bowlers bit the dust against the dominating Aussie duo Warner and Finch. Jasprit Bumrah, the ICC’s world no. 1 ODI bowler and hailed to be one of the best in the world, couldn’t manage to pick any wickets and gave up 50 runs from 7 overs.

Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami clueless on defending their score. (Image Courtesy: AP)

Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja couldn’t make a dent in Australia’s batting prowess. The match also saw a high number of extras from the hosts, 20 in total.

There was also no shortage of boundaries from the chasers. Warner and Finch together converted an astounding 30 deliveries into boundaries and 5 into sixes.

It is expected that Team India learns from their mistakes in the previous game, and prepares themselves accordingly for Friday, the second and series decider match at the  the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium.

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