Funny game, cricket - but Steve Smith isn't laughing

Australian captain Steve Smith was looking forward to his milestone of 100 ODIs overnight, but the second loss to India killed any celebrations.

Now the Austraiians must win the next three games to win the series, but the way they are batting makes that highly unlikely.

Yet the stats from their 2017 ODIs suggest totals of 281 and 252 were very gettable.

But rain ruined any chance of winning the first at Chennai, losing by 26 under the Duckworth Lewis method. In all honesty that was plain bad luck with Mother Nature dictating terms.

In spite of that, there were worrying signs when Australia had India 3-11 and 5-87, but the locals smacked their way to 7-281 on the back of the bottom half of the order with Kefar Jadhav posting 40, MS Dhoni 79, Hardik Pandya 83, and Bhuknashwar Kumar 32.

Overnight the top order gave India a flying start with Ajinkya Rahane clubbing 55, and skipper Virat Kohli making up for his first ODI duck with a typically polished 92.

Despite the good start, the Australians fought back well, claiming the last six wickets for 46, so 252 was well within Australia’s range, if they batted to their 2017 year-long stats.

Warner – 472 runs – average 52.44
Smith – 367 – 52.43.
Travis Head – 443 – 55.37.
And Marcus Stoinis – 253 – 126.50.

Those stats are very convincing, but the top order haven’t been firing together.

That’s obviously been a problem, but the following are a bigger problem.

Glenn Maxwell – 267 – 29.67.
Matt Wade – 161 – 26.83.
James Faulkner – 99 – 24.75.
And Hilton Cartwright – 2 – 1.00.

Overnight was another failure, with Smith’s 59, and Stoinis’ unbeaten 62, the only standouts.

A funny game alright. and it’s much the same with the bowlers having to compete with no Mitchell Starc, nor Josh Hazlewood.

(AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)

Paceman Nathan Coulter-Nile has has been the most successful Australian with figures of 20 overs 6-96. Stoinis 20 had overs 2-100, and in the one game he’s played, Kane Richardson picked up ten overs 3-55.

But the best bowler by far has been Pat Cummins, yet his figures don’t support that statement with 20 overs four maidens 1-78, yet he’s been the most dangerous bowler often passing the 150 kph mark, and extracting lift from unresponsive tracks.

And that’s not funny from Cummins point of view either.

The Australians need answers.

When, and if, Aaron Finch will overcome a calf injury to resume at the top of the order that’s brittle.

Cartwright must go, and in a perfect world a batting line-up of Warner, Finch, Smith, Head, Stoinis, Maxwell, Wade, Ashton Agar, Cummins, Coulter-Nile, and Adam Zampa would be more competitive.

If Finch is still on the injured list, bring in James Faulkner to bat seven, and promote Head to open.

And knuckle down to the job as a team, not individuals.

Australia need to attack India’s newest record holder, the 22-year-old left arm chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav.

Overnight he became India’s third ODI hat-trick taker, bowling Wade, trapping Agar in front, and having Cummins caught behind by Dhoni.

Yadav has joined Chetan Sharma whose hat-trick was against the Kiwis at Nagpur in 1987, and Kapil Dev against Sri Lanka at Calcutta in 1991.

There have only been 43 hat-tricks in 3913 ODIs.