Aus vs Ind | 1st ODI: What Experts said as Australia punish listless India

Australia defeated India by 66 runs in the first game of the three-match ODI series in Sydney. The Kangaroos posted a mammoth 374 runs on the board on the back of powerful centuries from Steve Smith and Aaron Finch as well as valuable contributions from David Warner and Glenn Maxwell. Indians were off to a rapid start as Mitchell Starc bowled one of the worst overs he has delivered in his career to start off the inning but wickets at regular intervals took the game away from them. 

Later, Hardik Pandya and Shikhar Dhawan tried to resurrect the inning but the Aussies were aware of the lack of depth in Indian batting. Once the duo departed, the chase became improbable for the Men in Deep Blue.

So, the Indian team is off to a poor start in the ODI series against Australia. The home team's batting lineup went into overdrive mode and punished all the offerings from the Indian side on a placid pitch at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Australia captain Aaron Finch won the toss and decided to make the first use of a batting-friendly pitch. His team piled on the runs leading to a score that proved out of the grasp of Indian top order. As a result, they went searching for too many runs in the powerplay overs.

Captains’ take

Losing captain Virat Kohli lamented the passive body language that his side showed on the field. He backed off from giving any excuses, such as an extended period of T20 games, for this dismal performance, especially in the bowling and fielding department. He expressed his disappointment with the fielding lapses and dropped catches. Kohli said that a quality team like Australia would hurt the opposition if they are given so many chances.

“We got enough time to prepare. I don't think there is any excuse on the field when you don't pull up as a side. Probably the first long game we've played in a while. We've been playing T20 cricket. But having said that, we've all played a lot of ODI cricket. The body language after 25-26 overs was disappointing. A quality side will hurt you,” Kohli stated at the post-match presentation ceremony.

Discussing the lack of bowling options, the Indian skipper added that the team needs an over or two from part-timers in the middle phase of the game, like Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis did for Australia. He reiterated that Hardik Pandya is yet to get fit enough to bowl and that makes his job a tricky one while trying to find the perfect balance. Virat lamented that his bowlers were not up to the mark to pick up regular wickets and therefore the Australian batting lineup ended up running away with the game.

“We'll have to find out ways of getting a few overs from a few part-timers in the side. Unfortunately, Hardik is not ready to bowl yet so we have to accept that and work around it. That is an area we have looked at, which is a very big part of any team's balance. Stoinis and Glenn do it for Australia. The key to keeping the batsmen in check is picking up wickets and we couldn't do that,” the India captain said.

He also discussed the batting tactics that his team adopted in the powerplay overs. According to him, Indian batsmen were committed to playing positive cricket. However, Kohli also believed that one among the top three had to get a daddy hundred, a score in excess of 130-140. The team suffered as it wasn't the case and both him and Agarwal went cheaply while in search of quick runs at the top of the innings.

“From the batting point of view, we had a chat briefly after the game. All of us committed to playing positively and that's why you saw everyone go out there and play with intent. We just need to have a big inning from the top three, 130 or 140, which didn't happen, unfortunately. Hardik's inning was an example of that,” the 32-year old said while elaborating on the outlook of his team's batting lineup in the failed chase.

All humour was not lost in Kohli as he remarked that he will don the bowling avatar when his Australian counterpart is at the crease. The reason given was his knowledge that Finch is afraid of getting out to his RCB captain. 

On the other side, for Aaron Finch, it was a team effort that won the game. He personally felt a bit of difficulty in timing the ball during the middle phase of the game.

“I found it reasonably hard to get my timing in the middle overs. Took a couple of chances and luckily they came off,” he mentioned about his batting at the SCG.

Responding to the question of whether he or any of his teammates had a target score on their minds, the skipper added that they were not targeting any score from the outset. Instead, it were continuous partnerships that propelled them to a big total.

“There was no conscious effort to say we're going to go and target x, y, z. As partnerships grow, you work it out. Each guy has different strengths and weaknesses."

Finch spoke highly of his batting partners and said that Steve Smith was a class apart while David Warner got the thing he is working on going for him in the first ODI. He also commended the extraordinary shotmaking skills of Glenn Maxwell and said that it merely requires switching on for the right-hander when the team needs to put pressure on the opposition.

“Davey (Warner) is moving beautifully, something he's been working on. Smudge (Smith) was a different class altogether. And Maxi (Maxwell), that rare ability he's got to almost just click his fingers and put pressure back on the opposition. Super skill! Some of those reverses were extraordinary," the captain explained. 

Experts’ take

Virat Kohli has been one of the best batsmen when it comes to chasing. His impeccable skills of timing his assault on the opposition bowling line ups have been exemplary. But, at the SCG, Indian captain looked in a hurry and tried to be too ambitious in the powerplay overs. One of the most unusual scenes in cricketing world is Virat Kohli losing the vision in his batting and it was big enough to catch the attention of an ace cricket watcher - commentator Harsha Bhogle. The latter readily pointed out that Indian captain failed to pick up the pace of the game and went to the pavilion on a very middling score by his standards.

On the other hand, Hardik Pandya who batted magnificently for 90 runs earned plaudits from Harsha Bhogle who could see his capabilities beyond six-hitting and flamboyance. Pandya looked assured at the crease and his calmness while maintaining run rate with lusty blows showed the level of maturity Pandya has attained as a batsman of the side. He repaid the faith shown by Virat Kohli in laying him as a specialist lower-order batsman.

Earlier in the day, when Aaron Finch and Steve Smith were going berserk with the bat and tonking Indian bowlers to all parts of the ground, Harsha wondered if RCB fans were wondering about Aaron Finch who played for them in the IPL and the one playing at the SCG were two different players. 

Harsha also lauded Steve Smith who took on the bowlers after steadying himself at the crease. In Harsha's words, Smith made the best use of the hands Smith recently found after while training under a quarantine period.

On the other hand, former England captain Michael Vaughan was not pleased one bit by the level of performance of the Indian team and he stuck his neck out and predicted easy wins for the home side across formats against India.

Vaughan also called the composition of the Indian playing XI with only five bowling options and limited batting depth an ‘old schooled’ one. 

He went ahead and listed many more observations that he made during the course of the 1st ODI and said that the ODI series and following T20 and Test series will prove to be a tough and long tour of the Indian team.

Veteran Cricket journalist Ayaz Memon had predicted way early that the Indian batting line up was up for a stiff chase after the Australian opening pair of David Warner and Aaron Finch made the Indian pace trio of Mohammed Shami, Navdeep Saini quite ineffective on an SCG pitch that appeared nothing better than a road.

Steve Smith turned an already commanding position of Australia into a dominating one by smashing Indian bowlers for his 66-ball-105. Memon, too, was awestruck by the ease with which Smith was dominating the Indian bowling attack.

No matter how short or long Virat Kohli’s stays at the crease, more often than not he makes a mark and he did not miss out in Sydney as well when he nonchalantly flicked a Josh Hazlewood’s delivery after picking up on length to a fairly long six over square leg. 

Big players of past generations such as Mark Vaugh who himself is known for stroke-making judged that shot as the shot of the match while Shane Warne called the shot as one of the purest shots of Virat Kohli. Memon, too, was amazed by that shot and commended Kohli for picking the length and line of the delivery so early to be in a perfect position.

The Indian team was proved to be an ordinary bowling team on a placid SCG pitch and Virat Kohli will have to come back with a better-balanced approach and team to challenge these Australian batsmen if the nature of the pitches is going to be the same for the rest of the series.

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