Major events
9th over: India 49-4 (Kohli 22, Hardik 1) Rahul reviewed his LBW, but like a split angle, all the third umpires were red. India’s review has halved.
Wicket! KL Rahul lbw Starc 9 (India 48-4)
Almost another commentator’s curse as Kohli slashed the first ball of Starc’s fifth over without control outside his off stump, but the thick edge landed safely behind square. Not that the bowler was in the huff for long. Three balls later he has KL Rahul lbw! Classic Starc, line and length, seaming back to the right hander, after two angles. Quality fast bowling. Starke has four. Australia is a cock-a-hoop.
8th over: India 47-3 (Kohli 21, Rahul 9) The first bowling change of the day sees Sean Abbott replace Cameron Greene. Start orderly from the right-arm seamer, hitting the deck hard, back of length. He doesn’t trouble Kohli, though, who moves into the 20s with ominous ease.
7th over: India 42-3 (Kohli 18, Rahul 7) KL Rahul is off the mark with a leg glance, a close shot from a diving Carey is dangerously close as he falls too far to the off side at the point of contact. A few runs through the off side of the backfoot are more traditional as he resumes an active, tight running partnership with Kohli.
6th over: India 34-3 (Kohli 17, Rahul 0) Greene has settled into his job and is providing an excellent foil to the doomed Stark. A total of five runs and eight dot-balls in his last two overs.
5th over: India 32-3 (Kohli 15, Rahul 0) KL Rahul keeps the hat-trick ball out, but it’s still the first double wicket for Starc. The big quick has already justified his captain’s decision to bowl first.
Wickets! Suryakumar LBW Starc 0 (India 32-3)
Make that three! SKY went to the first ball! That’s the beauty of Starc, roaring into the crease, landing the ball on the right line and length, finding the cue to walk the right-hander and whip the bat. That seemed too out of place in real time, and after a mid-pitch confab Kohli agreed and his junior partner didn’t review. Australia is rampant.
Wicket! Rohit C Smith B Starc (India 32-2)
Starc slashes two Rohit wide length deliveries with flat feet, edges Smith at second slip, who does well to react to the initial jolt and hold after threatening to wrangle the ball. Australia got off to a good start without doing much.
4th over: India 32-1 (Rohit 13, Kohli 15) Three singles, three dots, one play-and-miss, no extras. First regulation over of the game. Green bowling at 140+ kmph with the new ball.
Third over: India 29-1 (Rohit 11, Kohli 14) More time from Kohli – he has come to play! A checked drive through the cover of green has been upgraded to Starc’s classical off drive. all the time. The bowler reacts by pulling back his length, extracting a touch of bounce, and Kohli’s limp waft makes it look a better delivery than before. The Indian star doesn’t have to do anything to make another legal delivery look dangerous (after another wild off-side wide). Starc finds the perfect length, wobbles the signal and misses it by inches over the outside edge and off stump. But again the follow-up is poor, leaking on the pads and gifting another boundary to Kohli.
2nd over: India 19-1 (Rohit 10, Kohli 6) Cameron Green shares the new ball, and he starts with a beautiful full outswinger that shapes well in the air. The rest of the over didn’t have much chop, with Rohit hitting successive leg-stump half-volley boundaries through square-leg, while Kohli showed his timing with a check drive through the covers for four.
In the TV tight shot, with the bright straw colored decks and vivid green outfield, you could easily be forgiven for thinking you were in Australia. You only know you are in India when the camera comes out. Oh, and the sound is deafening.
First over: India 8-1 (Rohit 5, Kohli 1) Not the best over in international cricket, but Australia will be very happy, even if Rohit ends it with a leg-stump half-volley for four.
Wicket! Gilles C Labuschagne B Starc 0 (India 3-1)
Starc starts with a massive wide that tracks the second closer to two slips than the India captain. Rohit then drops to third with a gentle guide over the wicket with a left-arm bowling angle. Another wild wide, this time in the obscure direction of Gill. Not sure if Stark is still in the running. lol He took a wicket in the next delivery. Of course he does. Length outside off – no delivery really – and Gill sends the thick edge straight to point without taking off his feet.
Mitchell Starc has the ball. Rohit Sharma is on strike. Let’s play cricket!
The two sides are out in the middle. The surface appears flat and straw colored. The outfield is lush and emerald. India is in vivid blue with orange accents. Australian canary yellow with a dash of zinc. Umpires are in magenta. It is a beautiful sight.
Australia backing pace, India favoring spin. It’s like UFC 1 when no one knew martial artists would prevail. Until the Brazilian jiu-jitsu block rocked and everyone was messed up.
Visakhapatnam is on the east coast of India where it has been raining around for the past few days, but the skies have cleared in time.
Australia will field after winning the toss
This place is usually full of runs so Steve Smith is hoping to absorb any sap on the surface after recent days of rain. Makes sense. Glenn Maxwell pulled up injured after his first international outing for a while, hence Ellis’ inclusion.
Rohit would also bowl first but is still confident of going back later for his attack with three spinners.
India XI
Rohit Sharma returns to captain the team, so Ishan Kishan makes way, while Axar Patel’s spin takes precedence over Shardul Thakur’s grunt.
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, KL Rahul (wicket), Hardik Pandey, Ravindra Jadeja, Akshar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammad Siraj, Mohammad Shami
Australia XI
Alex Carey returns behind the stumps, replacing Josh English, while Nathan Ellis comes in for Glenn Maxwell. David Warner is not yet.
Australia: Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith (c), Marnus Labuschagne, Alex Carey (wicketkeeper), Cameron Greene, Marcus Stoinis, Shaun Abbott, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa
here it is Geoff’s Series Preview, If, unlike ICC you need your cricket reference.
The company says it will be useful in preparation for the 50-over World Cup to be held in India later this year. It could mean something if Australia didn’t schedule a three-game date in India in September for exactly that purpose. While the latter series has been on the calendar for a long time, the current series was shoehorned in a few months ago when it became clear that some unused days could be made up between Tests and the new season of the Indian Premier League. It was also around the same time that Cricket Australia cited ethical concerns in canceling the planned series against Afghanistan at the end of March.
Preface
Jonathan Howcroft
Hello everyone and welcome to the 2nd ODI of the cricket series for cricket between India and Australia. Weather permitting, we will depart Visakhapatnam at 1.30pm local time (7pm AEDT).
Smash cut to Geoff Lemon’s introduction to Friday’s first ODI:
If you want another indication of how meaningful this series is, no Australian media outlet is covering it. None. All of us who played the Test series came out later. Also from Cricket Australia’s in-house site cricket.com.au team. They went to the Caribbean and Bangladesh on a team plane during the pandemic for the White Ball tour, but not this one. Australian correspondents from Cricbuzz and Cricinfo will be in Mumbai for this first match, but they had other things to take care of in the same city. No one will go to the second and third games.
Why? Because this series was only added a few months ago and serves no purpose other than filling screen time. England players have been objecting to the one-day internationals that followed the T20 World Cup last November, with half their reserves preferring to play the Pakistan Super League T20 rather than show up in Bangladesh for England’s games in the past fortnight. We are at an interesting stage in the life cycle of bilateral competition.
Friday’s series opener was far from a classic with bowlers from both sides dominating before KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja took India home by five wickets.
Let’s see what we have in store today.
Since all involved have fulfilled their contractual obligations, feel free to send me an email, or shoot me a tweet @JPHowcroft.
