India have never won a bilateral ODI series in Australia.
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Rohit Sharma hit a mammoth 171 not out to earn himself the record for highest ODI score by a visiting player in Australia, and was ably supported by Virat Kohli for most of his innings, who notched 91 runs from his 97 balls. Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, and Rohit Sharma will add steel to the batting and this will be a real challenge for the trio and a great opportunity for them to mature. He went on to score 112 from 120 balls and was instrumental in helping Smith, who scored 149 from 135 balls before he was dismissed in the last over, take the ascendency against India’s slow bowlers in the middle overs.
Sran had a positive day for the visitors in the T20 warm-up game against Western Australia after claiming figures of 2/24 in four overs. Especially disappointing were India’s spin twins Ravichandran Ashwin (2/68 in 9 overs) and Ravindra Jadeja (0/61 in 9 overs) looked far from penetrative.
Debutant Barinder Sran was trusted to open the bowling on debut and rewarded his captain with the key wicket of Aaron Finch (eight runs) in just the third over.
For Australia, Faulkner bagged two important wickets while Josh Hazlewood also chipped in with a wicket. It prompted the management to call up Bhuvneshwar Kumar to the squad. It is really hard to play in Australia due to bouncy pitches, but he played well.
The hosts thus lead the five-match ODI series 1-0.
Bailey, who actually had a let-off from his first ball when a glove through to wicketkeeper Dhoni was not spotted, put in an impressive showing alongside his skipper as Australia showed no signs of letting up. The Indian bowling attack looked completely out of depth as the Smith-Bailey duo never did anything extraordinary but still managed to hammer Umesh Yadav and co with monotonic regularity.
Earlier, opting to bat first, Rohit slammed a brilliant ton and along with Kohli added 207 runs for the second wicket to post a formidable total on the board.
Don’t forget to come back for the match result, man of the match, video highlights, full / complete scorecard / scoreboard and much more.
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Before the teams move on to Brisbane for the second game on January 15, Bleacher Report has picked out the winners and losers from the series opener.
