Congratulations to Australia for winning the three ODI series 2-1 against India. Australia looked the far superior team with a deep batting and bowling line-up.
Let us look at how the teams performed.
Australia
Batting
The current Australian team is blessed with a long batting line-up comprising high-quality top-order batsmen like Steve Smith, David Warner, Aaron Finch and Marnus Labuschagne. A set of explosive finishers like Glenn Maxwell, Alex Carey and Marcus Stoinis follow these top-order batsmen. In this series, Warner and Finch provided excellent starts, which were then eclipsed by the brilliance of the twin centuries by Smith.
Smith has been a bugbear for Indian bowlers since 2015, and he once again toyed with them, scoring 60-ball centuries in the first two matches. Maxwell and Labuschagne finished off the Indian bowlers enabling Australia to score 370+ runs in the first two ODIs in Sydney.
Australia played with pretty much the same team in the 2019 World Cup, but their middle order was quite shaky in that tournament. A lot of that shakiness was because Smith was not in great form and that the middle order was forced to come in to bat a lot earlier and under higher pressure as well. However, in this series, the top three ensured that Maxwell and others could play freely and they duly put the Indian bowling to the sword.
One could see the pressure getting to the middle order in the third ODI at Canberra when the top order left them with a bigger job to do to win the game. Maxwell played a loose shot at the end, and Carey ran himself out, despite looking in control of the chase.
Despite the loss in the dead rubber, it was a dominant performance by the Australian team. The batsmen were the force behind this comprehensive series win. Smith was the batsman of the series, without any doubt.
Bowling
The Australian bowling unit had the benefit of defending huge scores against the Indian batting line-up. The bowlers did just enough to make sure that the Indian batsmen were continuously kept under pressure and lost wickets at regular intervals. Josh Hazlewood and Adam Zampa were the pick of the bowlers for taking crucial wickets and keeping it tight. Pat Cummins bowled quite well as and was rightfully rested for the final ODI. Ashton Agar played the last ODI and came through with flying colours.
Sean Abbott and Mitchell Starc did not quite live up to the expectations. Starc was wayward and got hit by the Indian batsmen quite easily. Abbott could not quite bridge the gulf between first-class level and international level cricket. Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja took Abbott apart in the death overs and enabled India to post a good score at the Manuka Oval.
Cameron Green did not have a good debut outing with the ball and was efficiently dealt with by the Indian batsmen.
In the end, Finch will be happy with the series win but will remind his bowlers that his batsmen had done half their job already for them.
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
India
Batting
Any batting team that scores 308, 338 and 302 in the three matches would consider themselves to have done a great job. However, in this series, the Indian batting unit was faced with mammoth tasks of chasing 370+ target in two of their matches in Sydney. The efforts, as mentioned above, were nowhere near enough.
To chase down such monstrous targets, a team needs a top-order that could score quickly and score big as well. Only a very few batsmen in international Cricket can do both. Rohit Sharma is one such batsman, and his absence in the batting unit played a significant role in India not able to chase those mammoth targets down successfully.
Mayank Agrawal, who replaced Rohit, scored rapidly but compiled only 22 and 28 runs in the two outings. In the absence of Sharma, Virat Kohli was forced to take all the risks, and he perished in doing so, well before taking his team close to safety.
The Indian team might have scored 308 and 338 in the two ODIs in Sydney, but they rarely looked like winning either of the matches.
One of the main reasons for the Indian batting failure was their inability to rotate the strike during a partnership. All the batsmen went too hard at the ball trying to hit boundaries of every ball and ended up playing too many dot balls. This inability to rotate strike is one big area that the Indian batsmen will look to improve in the future.
The other crucial reason for the failure was the lack of batting depth in the lower order. India played four specialist bowlers, and none of them could hold their end up for some time. Leave alone, scoring runs!
Hardik and Jadeja provided the best batting performance for India in the third ODI. They compiled a record-breaking sixth-wicket partnership of 150 runs and enabled India to score the match-winning 302 runs. It was only during this period that the Indian batting looked to be on top of the Australian bowling.
Bowling
The Indian bowling unit was a big disappointment in the first two matches in Sydney. They did start with the handicap of having to bowl first on a flat deck and on two hot days in Sydney.
However, this cannot take away their looking lost when the Aussie batsmen went after them. Navdeep Saini, Yuzvendra Chahal and Jasprit Bumrah were quite disappointing with the ball. They allowed the Australian batsmen to line them up and take them to the cleaners. The best bowling effort in the Sydney ODIs came from Hardik, who mixed his deliveries and bowled four overs for 24 runs in the second ODI. Hardik had to risk an injury to bowl those four overs!
The Indian bowlers put up a better show in the third ODI at Canberra. The Manuka Oval pitch had extra bounce and helped the fast bowlers with some seam movement. Shardul Thakur was the pick of the bowlers with his cross seamed deliveries beating the outside edge many times. Bumrah bowled well and got some wickets as well. Virat will be happy to see his premier bowler return to good form. The debutante Natarajan provided the left arm variation to the attack and chipped in with useful wickets.
Before closing this section, I need to mention the abysmal fielding show that the Indian team put up in Sydney. The number of fumbles and dropped catches cost the team dear. Even in the final ODI, which the team won, there were catches dropped, direct hits missed and fumbles in the boundary line. Virat, who expects high standard on the field, will want the unit to pull up their socks in the T20 and Test matches.
Closing punch
The Australian ODI team was superior to the Indian team not only in terms of the final results and also on paper. The Australian team played with seven bowlers and eight batsmen, while India played with six batsmen and five bowlers. This versatility in the Australian team was the main difference in this series between these two teams. This difference was too much of an advantage to overcome for a team that was playing away from their home conditions.
The 2023 ODI World Cup is still some distance away. Australia will focus on retaining the core of this team until then; India will look for bowling all-rounders like Thakur and Jadeja to come in and add depth to their bowling and batting units. Considering that the World cup is to be played in India, a spin-bowling all-rounder might be the one the management will focus.
Simon
Guest
Warney can do some absolutely fantastic analysis but once he gets on a tangent he's just unbearable. Just rants on about some rubbish point like how Marcus Stoinis should open the batting in test matches or something. The other day he went on and on about how they should have picked Matthew Wade and then when asked if he didn't want Green in the side he said 'i would have brought him and Agar in for Starc and Cummins' so essentially he would have gone in with one quick
Gee
Roar Rookie
Great point, there is a real place in the team for a quick who can bowl at the depth. Starc can but Cummins and Hazlewood are clueless.
Paul
Roar Guru
just as we did with Abbott and Green. I doubt greatly Cummins would have been rested if the series was on the line, nor so I think Green would have played in a decider. In any event, it's great to see new guys getting a chance. They all certainly gave it their best.
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
I guess they wanting to test out player, let those guys have a feel in games that don’t mean too much
Paul
Roar Guru
very good comments. Totally agree with all you've written
dat
Roar Rookie
Alongside Rohit, Bhuvneshwar Kumar was also someone india wished was available for this series, as he is usually india’s go to bowler in getting a breakthrough with the new ball(something india sorely lacked in the first 2 games),while also adding batting depth coming in at no:8. India still needs to find capable backups for their whiteball trio(bhuvi bumrah shami) especially if hardik isn’t fit enough to chip in with few overs . For now atleast, i can’t say any of the new guys impressed enough to suggest they can take up that role in this format . This was Thakur’s first decent outing after being abysmal so far,Natarajan is still pretty inexperienced even at the domestic level while saini was just spraying it around( Natarajan was added to the indian team because saini said to have back issues not sure that contributed towards his poor lines and lengths) Hopefully the t20is would be more closely contested as, bumrah hasn’t hit a rough patch in that format yet and would have better support from shami(if he is fit) and deepak chahar.
Tsat
Roar Guru
A fit Rohit and fully fit Hardik can help carry the WC like 6 batsmen, 5 bowlers for India. On pitches with some help, like the ones we saw in the WC 2019 or Manuka yesterday, India will do well. India's problem since CT 2017 has been playing on roads like in Trent Bridge, Oval (during CT), Sydney etc. Five bowlers despite being how great they are have been taken for 70 each. So certainly for such wickets, India needs the No.8 to be Shardul Thakur in place of Saini
Bobbo7
Guest
Spot on. Win the toss on absolute roads, make 300 plus and hard to chase. Pitches just say too flat
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
He's totally unprofessional at times. He uses every opportunity to remind everyone he doesn't rate Steve Waugh but we all know it's for personal rather than cricketing reasons. Ian Chappell at least wouldn't say such things on air. Warne has also over the years taken every opportunity to slag off John Buchanan while on air. His rants of either player were embarrassing enough when he did it on 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' but when getting paid good money to enhance television viewing of a game, it's a matter of 'He's an unprofessional behaving commentator, get him out of there and don't ever bring him back'.
Ducky
Roar Rookie
I’m totally sick of Shane Warne in commentary he must be the dopiest commentator on Foxtel and that’s saying something
Paul
Roar Guru
the selectors effectively chose two fast bowlers, Hazlewood & Abbott, who are far better suited getting through their ten overs before the death, as are Agar & Zampa. This is probably a skill Langer and the selectors need to get right before the next WC.
Paul
Roar Guru
The problem is, who goes out? Bumrah? Shami? Chahal? And if you lose a seriously good bowler, which all of these guys are, the bowler/batman coming in won't be as good a bowler, so the side could be chasing even bigger totals. India has based it's considerable ODI success on having a very strong top 7 with the bat. If Rohit was fit and played or the side got more contributions from Dawan, KL Rahul, Iyer or even Kohli, they could have been much closer in their run chases. In short, the top 5 guys were below par.
La grandeur d'Athéna
Roar Rookie
Review would be downright bad from me. :angry: To be honest, i was baffled by some of selection and decision Australia made yesterday. It looked like Four batsmen,two bowlers and five all rounder. Yet in the fashion our top order collapsed was disappointing. For me biggest concern in number six. Hardik is not the finisher people are making him to be. He is neither Andre russel nor Glenn Maxwell. Jaddu is better finisher than him in his days as he has shown yesterday as well as in the semi final.Hardik plays like number five. So essentially we have two number five. Either Rahul has to switch to number six and has to play the finisher role. Or we have to drop Shreyas who had yet another disappointing series and play Rahul,Hardik, Jaddu at Four,Five,Six. Because we can not drop kuldeep and chahal for their mid over contribution. If that was our best performance against a team that pretty much played a V team in last match, we are in for a long long tour. :crying:
Tsat
Roar Guru
Thanks Mooty for the comments...The batting in isolation was fine..however considering the context of the first two chases, they never looked like there were winning the game at any stage. They were 120 for 4 or 5 in both the matches, chasing 370+
Tsat
Roar Guru
Thanks Paul for your comments..The top order batting was mad in the first game. They seemed quite unlike the cool chasing team. Rohit was certainly missed. Despite all that, the Indian team could have still gone closer had there been a couple of bowlers who could hold one end. When you have a long batting line up, one top order batsman can play the sheet anchor and stay till end. Here it was a job of scoring and holding for the top 6 or 7.
Mooty
Roar Rookie
I think you’re being a bit harsh on India’s batting effort in the first two matches. Scores of the low to medium 300s will win more games than lose, the 3rd match is proof of that. What was our excuse in that match, or is all to do with batting first.
Rob
Guest
Agree on Abbott although the more I see him, the more I think he just isn't a good bowler at the death. Year after year at the Sixer's he's used at the end and he goes the journey. Yesterday again was another example of his poor execution at the end of an innings. First 7 overs were fantastic, his last 3 were probably the worst 3 of the entire match.
Paul
Roar Guru
An interesting take Tsat. In fairness, I thought this was a series played between two fairly evenly matched sides, where winning the toss and batting first was crucial. India's failure was not playing 4 bowlers who couldn't make runs, it was no Rohit Sharma and a top order who didn't capitalise on starts. Look at how they threw away their wickets in that first game. It looked like Kohli, Agarwal, etc were still playing T20 cricket. They did little better in games 2 or 3 and were only saved by some excellent batting from Pandya and Jadeja in that last game. I suggest you might be one of the very few who thought Green didn't "have a good debut outing with the ball". Four overs for 27 were fair figures, but there were more than a few deliveries that hit the keepers gloves very hard and he had the worlds best batsmen thinking. Sean Abbott was on a hiding to nothing. He hasn't played any white ball cricket in some time, but was expected to do a job against some of the best white ball players in the game, who have been involved in IPL or have played in this series. He's a much better white ball bowler than his figures showed last night
John Timothy
Guest
Don't just depend on Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood in ODIs. There are also youngsters like J Richardson, Stanlake and Sams. Selectors need to realize that very soon. Death bowling is a major concern for Australia! If you don't fix these issues, then winning the 2023 WC will be impossible.
John Timothy
Guest
Australia must sort out their batting issues while chasing a big target. Need to be fearless like England and India. I mean they have to adopt 'There's nothing to panic' approach even if the target is 350+. Batsmen need to change their mindset. Consider playing 2 spinners in every match since the 2023 WC will be played in India. Carey has to bat @ 4 (He can build the innings with Smith. That's the only way you can the best out of him. He's not Gilly, Dhoni or Buttler kinda wk batsman. Rather, he's like Sangakkara). T Head (or Short) will have to be in the squad even if he's not going to play. So that he can pick Warner's brain and can also replace him when he's injured or rested.