John Hastings to replace Hazlewood for third ODI – Paceman John Hastings has been retained in Australia’s squad for the 3rd one-day worldwide against India in Melbourne this weekend, according to Cricket Australia (CA).
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Australia posted a three-wicket win over India in the third cricket one-dayer here today and taken an unassailable 3-0 lead in five-ODI series. Maxwell played the best innings of the match, counter-punching under pressure, keeping calm, and guiding Australia home. Team India have made two changes to their side bringing in two debutants – Gurkeerat Singh Maan and Rishi Dhawan into the team in place of Ravichandran Ashwin and Manish Pandey. He also became the fastest batsman to reach 7000 ODI runs in 161 innings, surpassing South Africa star AB de Villiers’ record of 166 innings.
Kohli stepped up in Sharma’s absence, forming key partnerships with Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane as he powered to three figures in the 43rd over. India looked to carry on this momentum but Dhawan started taking more risks than necessary in order to compensate for his many dot balls.
Ajinkya Rahane has also done well, scoring 89 in the second game.
As a result, he was bowled by John Hastings (4-58) against the run of play, walking across his stumps in the 27th over. Australia were keeping abreast of the run-rate, and Smith was into his forties in the blink of an eye. The closest India got to legitimately threatening Australia came when off-spinner Ravindra Jadeja claimed 2-25 in his six-over spell in the middle of the innings.
India lost Singh (8) and Dhoni struck a six and a four before holing out to deep mid-wicket.
However, Umesh Yadav managed to strike once for India till now and the score is 65 for 1 after 10 overs. Ishant Sharma came in for Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the second ODI but that didn’t turn India’s fortunes around too much as the Aussie top four got going easily after Aaron Finch and Shaun Marsh had gotten off to a slow start.
The Indians were well in contention for their first win of the series when they had Australia in trouble at 215 for six.
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Shaun Marsh (62) and Steve Smith (41) contributed with the bats in the match. As one who has loved the pressure all along, Dhoni is aware if he loses the ODI series this time, his neck will be on the chopping block. A few overs later, Jadeja got George Bailey to drag his foot out a millimetre, but that was all the space Dhoni needed to effect one of his lightning-quick stumpings. Dhoni whipped off the bails to leave the Australians on 150 for three. The duo added 48 runs for the opening wicket before the former was dismissed by Yadav.
