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What was expected to be a high-tension encounter at Wankhede Stadium turned out to be a one-sided affair as Aaron Finch and David Warner scored a ton each and chased down the 256 runs target in 37.4 overs. It was a disappointing start to the series for the Indian fans and plenty of reasons are trending on Twitter currently. A few are blaming the skipper Virat Kohli for sacrificing his no. 3 batting spot while few are furious over Shardul Thakur’s picking over Navdeep Saini.
However, Shikhar Dhawan believes KL Rahul’s wicket is one of the reasons for the thumping 10 wicket drubbing at the hands of Aussies at Wankhede yesterday. According to him, KL Rahul’s wicket was the turning point of the match as it triggered the collapse which eventually saw India folding up at 255/10 with five balls remaining.
“I feel that when KL got out, that time we planned to accelerate and those four wickets we lost, that’s where we lost the momentum. From there, we were targeting 300 runs and because of loss of wickets, we ended up scoring less runs on that sort of a wicket. In bowling, we could not take wickets and they outplayed us.”
India looked well settled when KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan were batting in the middle overs. The duo managed 121-run partnership and was planning to accelerate and give India a more competitive score. However, India soon lost four wickets for 30 runs and eventually ended up at 255.
The second ODI of the three-match short series will be played on January 17th at Rajkot. While it is a must-win game of the hosts, Australia won’t want to leave it to the third game to seal the series. The third and final ODI will be played at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on January 19, Sunday.