India suffered a heartbreaking loss in the third and final ODI against Australia at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Wednesday. With that, the hosts lost the ODI series 2-1, and it was their first ODI series defeat at home since March 2019, when coincidentally, they lost against the same opposition.
Although chasing 270, India were in the game for the maximum time as they got off to a flyer, with captain Rohit Sharma and young star Shubman Gill adding 65 runs for the opening wicket in nine overs. The home team lost both openers, but Virat Kohli and KL Rahul steadied the ship and took the team’s total near 150 in the 28th over before Rahul threw his wicket while playing a glory shot.
India couldn’t recover from Rahul’s dismissal and kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Kohli smashed his half-century, but he, too, lost concentration and ended up gifting his prized scalp to Ashton Agar. The Aussies then wrapped the proceedings and packed India for 248, winning the contest by 21 runs.
Former India cricketers Ajay Jadeja and Parthiv Patel analysed the India chase and explained what went wrong for the hosts and how they should have chased down the Aussie target. Jadeja questioned the Indian team’s decision-making of changing the batting order in the deciding match, which proved costly in the end.
“They started really well. I guess they reached 60-70 in the first 10 overs, which would slow down as the game progresses. But there was a time when KL Rahul and Virat Kohli were in the middle, and it felt like a switch was activated as all of a sudden, boundaries started to come. However, the dismissal of Rahul saw Axar Patel walking in, which showed the hosts were in a panic as they seemed confused regarding the batting order,” said Jadeja while speaking on Cricbuzz.
Similarly, Patel raised eyebrows at Rahul and Kohli’s shot-making when they got dismissed and mentioned that India should’ve gone the MS Dhoni way of taking the game deep.
“I think Virat Kohli was playing his natural game and taking it forward, but Rahul couldn’t do it despite the duo bringing down the equation to almost run a ball. Also, Kohli should’ve avoided playing the risky shot against Ashton Agar as it was his final over. Kohli is a master in the chase, and hence he should’ve taken the game deep just like MS Dhoni,” said Patel.
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