Final status: India defeats Australia by 36 runs.
Highlights of the match:-
1st innings:
India won the toss and chose to bat.
Shikhar Dhawan came as opening batsman and slammed his 17th ODI century. (117 run off 109 balls). His run set India on a convincing note with his sixteen 4’s which got him the man of the match.
India scored a total of 352 runs at a loss of 5 wickets.
Rohit Sharma as in the previous match took the lead and scored 57 runs off 70 balls.
Captain Virat Kohli scored 82 runs but he was caught out by Marcus Stoinis.
M.S Dhoni and Hardik Pandya although scored less runs in this innings, but their runs at mid-off were excellent.
M.S Dhoni (27 off 14 balls), H.Pandya(48 off 27 balls).
K.L. Rahul and Kedar Jadhav were both not out.
2nd innings:-
Australian batsmen David Warner (56 off 84), Steve Smith (69 off 70), and Alex Carey (55 not out) though scored half centuries still could not lead the team to victory.
Other batsmen surrendered quite badly to Indian Bowlers- Captain Aaron Finch (36 off 35), Glenn Maxwell (28 off 14), Nathan Counter Nile (4 off 9), Pat Cummins (8 off 7), Mitchell Stark(3 off 3), Adam Zampa(1 off 3).
The pitch of Oval stadium was fantastic and advantageous for Indian bowlers especially for spinners like Bhuvaneswar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah who scored a hatrick each with a very low run rate. Hardik Pandya and Kuldeep Yadav did not get any wickets and Yuzvendra Chahal took fabulous two wickets of Glenn Maxwell and David Warner at the economical rate of 6.2.
Australia scored 316 runs at the loss of 10 wickets.
By Riddhi Dutta
