India Vs Australia 3rd OdI 2020: On 19th January, India was playing the last and decider match against the Australian side of the 3 ODI (One Day International) series at Bengaluru. The series was level at 1-1 as Australia won the 1st ODI chasing the score of 256 without losing a single wicket. India made a comeback in the 2nd ODI, and the last match was the decider.
The team in blue restricted Australia at 286 for a loss of 9 wickets at the end of 50 overs. Rohit Sharma’s 29th ODI hundred, Virat Kohli’s 91 off of 89 deliveries, and Shreyas Iyer’s 44 runs helped propel India and score 389 for a loss of 3 wickets.
Chasing the score of 287 runs is never easy, however, Rohit took charge of the innings right from the initial powerplay. However, K L Rahul is still being tossed around in the line-up as he – for the third consecutive time – changed his batting order. As Shikhar Dhawan was kept out due to an injury he picked during Australia’s batting innings.
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Sharma, in the powerplay took Pat Cummins, and Mitchell Starc for a roll, it was only Josh Hazlewood who slowed down the run rate or else Australia would have conceded over 70 runs.
The openers were complementing each other, while K L Rahul was the steady one, Rohit Sharma got past 40 runs in the initial 10 overs itself. However, K L Rahul’s innings was cut short when Australians decided to take a review. He was LWB’ed by Ashton Agar.
Then came Indian skipper Virat kohli, and joined forces with in-form Sharma.
Though in the middle overs, the Australian bowlers were able to silence both the batsman, but it did not took Sharma long to find his rhythm and hit boundaries. Marnis Labuschangne, Adam Zampa, Aaron Finch, all were punished for the wrong deliveries, as Sharma hit them for sixes. His six off of Finch’s delivery got him into triple figures, move on the 4th position of most ODI centuries as he passes Sanath jayasuriya. Also, he has now taken 2nd fewest innings to reach 29 ODI centuries, with Kohli staying comfortable at 1st position, they took 217 and 185 innings respectively.
As Rohit started hitting boundaries, Kohli, too, gained confidence. Two consecutive boundaries helped Kohli reached his half century. In the 37th over, Sharma was caught by Starc after covering quite some ground on the long-on. As Shreyas Iyear marched on the ground and was seen playing on the backfoot as he gained confidence after he hit a six. Kohli, in the 46th over, was sent back to the stadium after Hazlewood bowled him out. Kohli was 9 runs short of his 44th ODI century.
In Australian batting innings, Steve Smith smashed his 9th ODI hundred and helped the team in yellow reach 286 for a loss of 9 wickets at the end of 50 overs. Aason Finch’s decision to bat as an opener soon backfired as he was run-out due to Smith’s misjudgement soon after David Warner’s dismissal.
The 2 wickets added pressure on Smith, but he joined hands with Labuschagne to revive their innings, and scored runs off of Kuldeep Yadav’s spells. With their partnership going strong, and Smith’s 50 coming along, they were turning out to be threat to India, but Labuschagne’s inning came to an end when in the 32nd over, Jadeja got him out as Kohli caught magnificently with a dive.
Even Starc promotion in the batting order did not yield the Australian side anything, as he got out for a duck. Nonetheless, Alex Carey came to the rescue and scored 35 off of 36 deliveries, but was caught by Iyer. After coming close to a ton in the 2nd ODI, Smith, scored 100 while playing some great and risky shots.
At the end of the match, the scores were as follows:
Australia 286/9 in 50 overs with Steve Smith scoring 131, Marnus Labuschagne scoring 54, and Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami having a bowling figure of 2/44 and 4/63 respectively.India won as they scored 289/3 and 15 balls in hand. Rohit Sharma scored 119, and Indian skipper, Virat kohli, scoring 89, and Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa taking 1 wicket each after giving away just 38 and 44 runs respectively.
