Australia's reserve pacemen and recalled batsmen beat India by 34 runs at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday in the ODI series opener as India failed to chase down 289, despite Rohit Sharma’s brilliant 133.
Usman Khawaja scored 59 during his first ODI in almost two years while Peter Handscomb, playing his first one-day match in 15 months, top-scored with 73 after Australia captain Aaron Finch won the toss and decided to bat.
Jason Behrendorff and Jhye Richardson, both called up in the absence of rested pace bowlers Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, quickly reduced India to four wickets for three runs.
Behrendorff trapped Shikhar Dhawan lbw for a golden duck then Richardson, who finished with figures of 4-26 and was named man of the match, removed Virat Kohli and Ambati Rayudu within three balls.
Sharma countered with his 22nd one-day century, sharing a 137-run stand with MS Dhoni as they threatened to take India to victory.
A victory equation of 75 runs from the final five overs ultimately proved insurmountable and Sharma went down swinging at Marcus Stoinis.
A match where hardly anything clicked for India, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma notched up some personal milestones. Australia, who are back to their winning ways, had more one than one reason to celebrate after the match.
Here’s a look at some of the numbers and trivia from the 1st ODI between Australia and India in Sydney on Saturday:
- When he castled the Australian captain Aaron Finch in the third over of the match, Bhuvneshwar Kumar joined a club of 18 other Indian bowlers to pick 100 wickets in ODIs.
- When he scored his first run in the Sydney ODI, MS Dhoni reached 10000 runs in ODIs when playing for India; he became the 5th cricketer to reach the milestone.
- Rohit Sharma dropped anchor in India's run-chase. His 133 was his 22nd century in ODIs, 20th as opening batsman and 7th ODI hundred against Australia.
- With his 133, Rohit Sharma set two new records. He now has 5 hundreds in ODIs in Australia - the most by an Indian batsman, bettering Virat Kohli's 4 ODI hundreds Down Under.
- Rohit Sharma now has 4 hundreds in ODIs against Australia in Australia, bettering Vivian Richards' record of 4 hundreds.
Rohit Sharma's century was a very well-constructed knock - particularly given the difficult situation India were pushed into early in the run-chase. He consolidated and batted cautiously early on, before stepping on the gears as if at an instant after he had faced 35 deliveries.
- The Australia XI for the Sydney ODI included Peter Siddle, who had last played an ODI on 5 November 2010. With his comeback, he set a new record for the most games missed by an Australian cricketer between ODI appearances.
India's chase was rocked right at the start, with the hosts picking up three wickets in the first four overs. It was the fewest runs for which India had lost their first three wickets. It was only the second time in ODI history that the Indian team had lost three wickets with just 4 runs on the board; the only other time India had suffered such an ignominy was against Zimbabwe in Adelaide in 2004.
- Australia's 34-run win in the 1st ODI against India would be their 1000th win in all forms of international cricket. Their win-loss record in the three formats of international cricket stands as below:
(Statistics by Arun Gopalakrishnan)
(With inputs from AP)