Australia vs India 2018-19: 5 key individual battles that will decide the ODI series

Following India's historic victory in the Test series, the stage is set for an extremely competitive ODI series against a battered and bruised Australian team. Instead of going for a full overhaul, Australia has retained a few players from the Test team while recalling many young players.

As far as India is concerned, MS Dhoni, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Yuzvendra Chahal are among others who have made their way into the ODI squad. India would love to carry forward the winning momentum from the grueling Test series to the shorter format of the game.

As of 10th Jan 2019, India is ranked 2 while Australia is trailing way behind at the number 6. Kohli has all the resources required to deliver another knockout punch in the series. This Australia-India ODI series has all the elements to make it a blockbuster series, which could prove to be a fitting end to India's historic tour of Australia 2018-19.

With this thought, here we take a look at the 5 key individual battles that will decide the ODI series.

#5 Aaron Finch vs Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Throughout the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2018-2019, Australia has struggled to get a good opening stand. Aaron Finch was poor in the Test series with scores of 0, 11, 50, 25, 8, and 3. Apart from the standalone 112-run opening stand in the 1st innings of the 2nd test, Finch's performance has been below par.

However, he is an altogether different animal to handle in ODIs. Finch likes the limited-overs format has scored a lot of runs in 2018. The battle between Finch and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the first 10 overs will be exciting to watch.

Finch knows it better than anybody else as he went fishing outside off stump to a Bhuvi's outswinger at the T20 in Melbourne in 2018. If Bhuvneshwar Kumar fails to get him early in the game, Finch can hurt India with the bat.