Australia vs India, 1st ODI, Sydney: Australia has won the 1st ODI vs India by 66 runs and takes a lead by 1-0 in 3 match series. Cricket has returned back after the long pandemic break when the two best teams in the world went against each other. Australia team on a very easy note wins the game to take the lead of 1-0 in the series. While with team India there was a complete absurd performance from batting to bowling division.
Nothing went in favor of Team India as firstly Indian team lost the toss and then went on to concedes so many runs. To chase the massive target of 375 against Australia in their own territory was never going to easy for Team India and the same thing happened. Team India had to face the defeat of 66 runs.
There are questions now over the selection of specific players in the team or team is relying on the captain to win every game or we say the captaincy was not up to the mark against the team like Australia. There is no brainer that a team can win every game without the experience factor hardly there is depth in the bowling division of team India and even looked completely absurd.
KL Rahul came into bat at number 5 which was another wrong decision rather than open the innings with him to provide the momentum with the kind of form he has been in recent times. Having said, let us take a look at the four things that went wrong for team India.
1) Lack of impact from the Indian bowlers
There is a long history of weak Indian bowling throughout the years and it was the same followed in the first ODI game of the series. The team can win matches against weak sides without experience bowlers but if you going against someone like Australia the result will be the same every time like it was today.
Ishant Sharma is already pulled out of the tour which is another blow for team India to survive in the coming matches. The expectations were from Jasprit Bumrah but he also went for 73 runs in his 10 overs spell with just one wicket. Except for Mohammed Shami, everyone failed to make an impact in the first match. Shami took 3 wickets from his 10 overs spell.
Even expected from Chahal to stop runs but he went 89 runs in his 10 overs spell with one wicket. Navdeep Saini who was expected to perform better with his pace on the Australian soil also failed to make an impact. He leaked 83 runs in his 10 overs while taking just one wicket. On the other hand, Ravindra Jadeja also ended his 10 overs without any wicket giving 63 runs.
Australia scored 374 runs for the loss of 6 wickets with centuries from Aaron Finch (114), Steve Smith (105), and Glenn Maxwell (45).
2) Messed batting order and failure from batsmen
Rohit Sharma is already not playing in case team India has to play with more batsman like Shubham Gill, Sanju Samson, and Manish Pandey to provide depth in the batting order to help the team to chase the big totals against a team like Australia. Even the batting order looked absurd. A player like KL Rahul came into bat at number 5 who is actually a good opener.
In such a high scoring match, you can’t expect Mayank Aggarwal to give you a flying start. Mayank is not even an opening batsman except team India should open with KL Rahul after his performance in IPL.
Shreyas Iyer also failed to show some intent in the pressure situation and got out for just 2 runs. Only Shikhar Dhawan and Hardik Pandya provided some resistance to team India in keeping the run rate up. If you look at the team India, the batting revolves too much around Virat Kohli. If Kohli scores the winning ratio is high but if he fails there is hardly a batsman to play an anchor role like him to win games on his own for team India.
Hope team India will come with a better batting line-up to keep themselves alive in the series as they have only batting to rely on the series otherwise Australia will whitewash team India on a very easy note.
3) Lack of quality spinner in ODI squad
It is obvious now that question will raise now over the selection of bowlers. Team India has two spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav on the tour. However, Kuldeep Yadav was not playing in the first game of ODI against Australia.
It’s too shocking to see that Ashwin in the test team for the test series but not included in the ODI and T20 series. Hope Team India will find success with the selection of bowlers on the tour especially ODI and T20 series. Let us see if Virat Kohli can win the ODI and T20 series with the kind of consistency he has been into the recent years of cricket.
4) Lack of genuine all-rounder in the team
There were times when players like Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina single handily snatched the victory for team India even from the jaws of defeat and wins the game out of nowhere. With only all-rounder Jadeja, you can’t expect much from him in a high scoring contest.
Today India played with 4 main bowlers and one all-rounder (Ravindra Jadeja). Hardik Pandya was included in the team as a batsman, not as an all-rounder. Team India needs an allrounder who can bowl in middle and gives some breakthrough to the team and who can score runs at the end with a good strike rate.
Hardik Pandya used to do bowl and bat earlier and played some big role for Team India. But after his back injury, he had stopped bowling which Team Indian needs the most.
What’s next?
After taking the lead by 1-0 in the series Australian team will try to gram the series after winning the 2nd ODI of 3 matches series on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Indian team will try to make a comeback.
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