The hosts India have brilliantly levelled the three-match ODI series against the visitors Australia after winning the second ODI of this series at Rajkot by 36 runs.
The visiting captain Aaron Finch once again won the toss and chose to field first. While India managed to score 340/6 (50 overs) in the first innings, Australia were bowled out for 304 runs (49.1 overs).
Most of the Australian batsmen failed to play big knocks in that high chasing as only three players reached the 30 runs mark in that innings. Playing his first ODI innings, Marnus Labuschagne scored 46 runs off 47 balls and put the crucial 96 runs partnership with Steven Smith for the third wicket. Smith was unlucky in that innings as he missed a century for just two runs. He scored 98 runs off 102 balls (9 fours and one six). The opening batsman and captain Aaron Finch (33) was the only other man in that innings to reach the 30-run mark in that innings. The late batsmen tried hard but failed to save that match.
Pacer Mohammed Shami (3/77) bagged three wickets while Navdeep Saini (2/62), Ravindra Jadeja (2/58) and Kuldeep Yadav (2/65) all took two wickets each. Another pacer Jasprit Bumrah (1/32) managed to pick up the last wicket of the match.
Indian top-orders provided the good starts, KL Rahul played one of the crucial knocks
Indian openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan put the 81 runs partnership while Rohit scored 42 runs off 44 balls. Then Shikhar Dhawan and captain Virat Kohli had the 103 runs partnership for the second wicket. After completing the half-century in 60 balls, Dhawan batted aggressively to chase the three-figure score but fell four runs short from the century (96 off 90 balls).
While Shreyas Iyer (7) failed once again, Kohli put another strong 78 runs partnership with KL Rahul, who played this ODI as a wicketkeeper-batsman. After Kohli’s dismissal on 78 runs off 76 balls, Rahul batted in a fiery way in the death overs. While Rahul reached the 50 runs mark in 38 balls, he scored 80 off just 52 balls (6 fours and 3 sixes) before losing his wicket on 49.4 overs. Manish Pandey (2) failed to utilise the opportunity while Ravindra Jadeja remained not out on 20 runs (16 balls).
Among the Australian bowlers, Adam Zampa (3/50) picked up three wickets while Kane Richardson (2/73) bagged two wickets.
Some crucial stats of the match:
i) It was India’s first home ODI victory against Australia after losing the last four ODIs in India.
ii) Rohit Sharma became the fastest batsman (137 innings) to complete 7,000 runs as an opening batsman. He broke the previous record of South African cricket Hashim Amla (147 innings).
iii) KL Rahul became the fourth fastest Indian batsman (27 innings) to complete 1,000 ODI runs. The top three fastest Indians in this list are Virat Kohli (24 ODI innings), Shikhar Dhawan (24 ODI innings) and Navjot Sidhu (25 ODI innings).
iv) Kuldeep Yadav became the fourth Indian left-arm spinner to complete 100 ODI wickets. On the other hand, he became the second-fastest Indian bowler (56 innings), after the pace-bowler Mohammed Shami (55 innings), to complete 100 ODI wickets.