Australia won the first ODI comfortably by 66 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the ODI series. Smith and Maxwell led the assault with the bat, while Finch also brought up his 17th ODI ton.
Starc only looked a shadow of himself, but Hazlewood and Zampa did enough to break the backbone of India’s batting line-up. Pandya and Dhawan played gutsy knocks to keep hopes alive for the Indian supporters, but Zampa got the better of both of them, to finally, set up the victory for the Kangaroos.
What went wrong for India?
A lot of things. The pitch did not have much to offer and all Australia had to do was to get a good start. They did get a good start and laid the perfect foundation for the middle order to capitalize on it.
Bumrah and Shami bowled well in the first few overs. The onslaught started during the middle overs. With the pitch flat and bowling lose, Finch and Warner started to up the ante. India, quite uncharacteristically, were sloppy in the field today. Indians easily gave away ones and twos, and thus could never build pressure. After Warner fell for 69, Smith walked in at number 3. He launched an attack on the Indian bowling line-up, collecting boundaries at will. Finch was dismissed for 114(124) but his wicket brought more bad than good for India. Maxwell came in and went absolutely berserk, smashing a sparkling 45 off just 18 balls. Smith also continued at the other end and brought up his century in just 62 balls. Consequently, Australia finished with a mammoth 374.
India got off to a flying start, bringing up 50 in just 5 overs. Indian batsmen were still in their T20 mindset, trying to go after every ball, but this approach proved costly for them. Virat got dropped on 1 by Zampa, when he top-edged a short ball, but couldn’t score much after that. Hazlewood, with short ball brilliance, put India on backfoot by sending back Agarwal, Kohli, and Iyer. Kohli, who usually relies on running between the wickets for runs early on in his inning, played a lot more flashy shots in his atypical run-a-ball 21.
Iyer, after deciding against a shot quite late on a bouncer, just forgot to bring the bat down and offered a dolly to Carey. Dhawan and Pandya played a lot more maturely, punishing the bad balls and not going after every ball. Hardik paced his inning well, but the inability of Dhawan to rotate strike later on in his inning added extra pressure on him. Dhawan perished while looking for a big shot over mid-off and new batsman Jadeja also failed to make a big impact. Zampa finally got his big fish Pandya in the 39th over and formally sealed the game there.
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