There weren’t to be that perfect ten wins on the trot for Virat Kohli, as his side’s dream tally came to an end in Bengaluru. The loss presents quite a few questions for the Men in Blue, as the batting order for the chase was completely revamped.
When you are chasing 335 to win, it makes sense to have your finisher batting at his designated position and not expecting someone else to play that role. But for India though, things were the opposite, as MS Dhoni was pushed at number seven in need to give Hardik Pandya sometime in the middle. After the openers put India off to a flying start thanks to half-centuries from Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane, there was a stutter in the middle order.
With Rohit Sharma being run out, India’s asking rate did go up, and that put pressure on the middle-order. Kedar Jadhav impressed with a half-century, but once he got dismissed, the game was all but gone. Post the loss, Kohli opened up about the game and credited Australia for the win.
“Honestly at the 30 over mark, they were going strong. I thought if we restricted them under 350, it would be a great effort, and we did do that. We were optimistic about our chances. That can happen. People have off days,” said Kohli.
“Umesh and Shami bowled well. Spinners won’t have good days always. Australia was really good today. They pulled things back nicely. We didn’t play so bad, but they were better on the day. The only respite for the fast bowlers was taking the pace off. It looked worse than it played. It played very well, surprised all of us,” said Kohli about the sluggish nature of the wicket.