Sunday turned out to be disappointing and anticlimactic for Indian cricket fans. They waited weeks for the grand return of RO-KO only to see the two stars failing to live up the the hype at the Optus Stadium in Perth.
In a rain-cut, stop-start series opener, the two players batted for just 22 deliveries, garnering eight runs together. The Aussies built on the start their pace bowlers provided them and cruised through to a seven-wicket win to take a 1-0 lead in the series.
The comeback that never quite began
The Indian fans were promised that they would see the brilliance of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Sharma showing his lazy elegance while stamping his authority over the Australian pacers, and Kohli working around his innings in his trademark style, playing a match-defining knock. What they received were two stars still trying to adjust themselves to the demands of the highest level, numerous rain interruptions, and a disappointing overall show from the team.
Australia won the toss ahead of the match and put India to bat in what were already overcast conditions. Rohit made a good start to the innings with a glorious straight drive down the ground. However, soon Josh Hazlewood’s nagging perfection got the better of the ex-Indian captain. Sharma was caught poking at a back-of-length delivery away from his body around the off-stump, edging it to the slip fielder, when he had only 8 runs off 14 deliveries to his name.
{{/usCountry}}Australia won the toss ahead of the match and put India to bat in what were already overcast conditions. Rohit made a good start to the innings with a glorious straight drive down the ground. However, soon Josh Hazlewood’s nagging perfection got the better of the ex-Indian captain. Sharma was caught poking at a back-of-length delivery away from his body around the off-stump, edging it to the slip fielder, when he had only 8 runs off 14 deliveries to his name.
{{/usCountry}}Well, with Rohit gone, all the hopes of the Indian fans were pinned on Virat Kohli to display a masterclass in ODI batting. However, this time, Mitchell Starc emerged as the villain for Indian fans. He made Kohli chase a sixth stump delivery and edge it to the backward point fielder. All the Indian master managed was six deliveries in the middle without troubling the scorer.
With Ro-Ko back at the hut, a decent performance was expected from the rest of the line-up. But rain kept interrupting the proceedings during the Indian innings, reducing the game to a 26-over-a-side affair, and the rest of the Indian batters also failed to show enough resilience to get the team to a fighting total. Ultimately, India managed 136 runs in their allotted overs, and the target was DLS adjusted to 131 for Australia.
The batting having flopped, the hopes were that the Indian bowlers would do something exceptional. Arshdeep Singh gave early hopes with the wicket of Travis Head. But after that, Mitchell Marsh took the game away from the team. Even though Australia lost a couple of wickets after that, India never found a way back into the game.
It was a disappointing start, but that is not the end of the tale. The Indian fans get another chance to watch their two icons in action on 23rd October at the Adelaide Stadium. They will hope that this time the two big guns fire and help India come back into the series.