IND vs AUS 3rd ODI Highlights: Australia beat India by 21 runs, win series 2-1

“Pitch is slightly off-center, so the dimensions change and it's going to be a long boundary. Bowlers have had a little bit of help in this series. This track has covering of grass, has rough through the centre. It's very hard and the roughness might come into play in the first innings. It might be slightly two-paced initially. Teams winning the toss will opt to bowl first and as it gets cooler it's a belter to bat.”

India: Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj 

Australia: David Warner, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith(c), Marnus Labuschagne, Alex Carey(w), Marcus Stoinis, Ashton Agar, Sean Abbott, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa

India have made no changes in their playing XI. 

Washington Sundar has not been considered and Axar Patel has been prefered over him.

"We were thinking of playing with four seamers but the conditions here are suitable for the spinners, so we go with three spinners," said Rohit at toss.

“David Warner is back and Cameron Green is feeling unwell, so there are changes.”

Australia skipper Steve Smith wins toss, opts to bat.

The spotlight will once again be on KL Rahul, who was dismissed cheaply in the previous ODI.

KL Rahul has been struggling for runs and lost his spot in the Test side.

He kicked-off the series with a match-winning 75, but was dismissed for 9 in the following encounter. 

If we look at the previous five encounters between both the sides. Australia have won thrice, while India have registered two wins.

Rahul Dravid noted the track as a good wicket at the pre-match press conference, indicating it could possibly be a high-scoring encounter in the series-decider.

Steve Smith is 51 runs away from reaching 5000 ODI runs. The stand-in Australia skipper is yet to hit a fifty in the ongoing tour, can he do it today?

Also if Smith goes on to hit a century, he will go on level terms with Ricky Ponting for most ODI 100s against India for Australia.

The ground has not been a happy ground for Virat Kohli, who has been dismissed for four single-digit scores from the seven ODIs he's played here. However, the talismanic batter has also hit two fifties, and one hundred.

The last time India lost an ODI series at home, it was in 2019… against Australia. That was a rather strange defeat as India, after being 2-0 up, lost three in a row. This time around, 4 years later, Rohit Sharma finds himself in the same boat as Virat Kohli. India's record at home as been next to none, and before the players disperse for the IPL, they would want to keep that record intact.

In a worrying trivia for India, Australia have a stellar record of winning 4 out of 5 matches at the Chepauk. Their last defeat came in 2017, against India. In the two matches played so far in the series, the side chasing has won; however, Chennai has always been known to favour the team batting first in Day-Night ODIs. 

Out of the 145 ODIs between the two teams, Australia lead India by a 81-54 scoreline, the domination being a result of one-sided matches in the 1990s and 2000s. Until 2008, Australia had the edge over India, but the Men In Blue turned a corner under MS Dhoni giving the Aussies a run for their money.

In order for India to take the series decider, they need to find out a way to stop the two Mitchell's - Starc and Marsh. Both have been a thorn in India's eye. Marsh has plundered the bowlers with back-to-back fifties while Starc has wrecked the top order on both occasions with 3/49 and 5/53 in Mumbai and Vizag respectively. In 7 matches, Marsh has scored 311 runs against India whereas Starc has the best strike rate of 25.6 among 157 bowlers with 100-plus wickets.

The series decider between India and Australia has been marred by inclement weather. Rainy weather has been persisting in Chennai but thankfully, Wednesday's forecast has improved drastically. The possibility of rain has come down by 40 percent and we should get a full qoute of 50 overs. LET'S GO! 

Yes, it has been that long. The refurbished MA Chidambaram Stadium will stage the decider with India's proud home record at stake. The last time an ODI was played at the Chepauk Stadium was back in 2018 which India lost against West Indies. Also, this is the first ever international in Chennai since the twin Tests against England in 2021. 

Speaking to reporters ahead of the third and final ODI of the series, Indian head coach Rahul Dravid revealed that the two-time world champions have narrowed their World Cup core team to 17-18 players ahead of the showpiece event."Probably not going to get too many more games in our conditions. We had the opportunity to play in these conditions which is great. Yeah, coming out of the IPL to a large extent we are pretty clear about the kind of squad and the players we want. We have narrowed it down to 17-18 players," Dravid said.

Rain gods are likely to make their presence felt in Chennai as India meet Australia in the third and final ODI of the bilateral series on Wednesday. The weather is expected to be around 33 degrees Celsius today in Chennai. As per Accuweather, thunderstorms are predicted for 12 PM and 3 PM. Cloud cover is likely to be 70% at 3 PM.

While it would be harsh to criticise the Indian pacers on their outing in the second ODI, the Indian team might be inclined on bringing fierce speedster Umran Malik in the playing XI. But who makes the way for him? 

The India batter has failed to register a 50+ score since February last year. In his last 10 innings, his highest score has been 34*. Here's the list of scores in his last 10 innings in ODIs:

0, 0, 14, DNB, 31, 4, 6, 34*, 4, 8.

Dravid backed Suryakumar amid the rough patch.

"He has played a lot of high-pressure T20 games but in one-day cricket, there's no equivalent tournament in domestic cricket, you'll have to play Vijay Hazare and all that. Even though he has played a lot of T20 cricket, I think he has not played a lot of one-day cricket. We just need to give him some time and be patient with him. We certainly see the upside of him doing well, which is very good for the side," Dravid said.

The explosive batter failed in the first two matches of the series; he was dismissed on first-ball ducks in both the games in quite an identical manner, and interestingly – both by Mitchell Starc. ‘SKY’, as he's known, was trapped in front of the wickets by the left-arm pacer, and there are speculations over his place in the XI ahead of the final ODI. 

Australia had produced impressive performances throughout the ODI series, even in the first match where they faced a five-wicket defeat. A solid partnership between KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja had steered India home at the time but the duo couldn't repeat their heroics in Visakhapatnam. Will the Steve Smith-led side carry forward the momentum in the decider?

India faced their biggest defeat by margin of balls remaining in the second ODI of the series against Australia, as they conceded a 118-run target in only 11 overs. Mitchell Starc ran through a hapless Indian batting order, while Mitchell Marsh (66*) and Travis Head (50*) scored unbeaten half-centuries to wrap the game up.

Hello and welcome to the live coverage of India vs Australia 3rd ODI from Chennai! After a blistering win in the second ODI, the Aussies would be aiming to keep the momentum intact while India will eye a strong return to ensure a third-straight ODI series win at home this year.