India vs Australia 2013: James Faulkner's blitz gives Australia the lead

James Faulkner was devastating with the bat

Just when India looked like coasting towards a comfortable victory, James Faulkner, in combination with Adam Voges (76* off 88), turned the tides with a stunning 64* off 29 deliveries to give Australia a 2-1 lead, with four more matches to go, at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali.

Chasing 304 to win the match, Australian openers Aaron Finch and Phil Hughes started off well helping the visitors get past 50 in 8.1 overs. Phil Hughes (22 off 40) was the first to go, edging Vinay Kumar to Dhoni. Despite the breakthrough, the Indian bowlers did not look like picking up wickets, just like they have been throughout the series.

Fortunately, both Finch (38) and Shane Watson (11) were wrongly adjudged lbw to Ishant Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja respectively to open the floodgates for the home team. From 88/3 in 19.1 overs, George Bailey and Adam Voges kept their team in the game by scoring 83 runs at 4.83 rpo. Having bowled 10 overs for just 31 runs, Jadeja helped India to keep a check on the run rate. Meanwhile, Ravichandran Ashwin’s disappointing series continued.

Vinay returned to trap Bailey (43 off 60) lbw with an indipper while James Maxwell was run out by Shikhar Dhawan in a mix-up with Adam Voges. Brad Haddin added 24 quick runs before holing out at long on. Australia needed 88 off the last 8 overs. The death bowling turned out to be India’s achilles heel again as Ishant Sharma conceded 30 runs off the 48th over, all scored by James Faulkner, to concede the match to the opponents in 49.3 overs.

Earlier in the day, put into bat first, India lost their first four wickets with just 76 runs on the board in 13 overs. While Shikhar Dhawan (8) was caught behind off Clint Mckay, Rohit Sharma (11) and Suresh Raina (17) were bounced out by Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson respectively. Johnson also had a chance to claim a hat-trick when he dismissed Yuvraj Singh for a golden duck in the very next delivery.

Despite Virat Kohli starting off from where left in the last ODI, keeping in mind how good the wicket was and the mediocre Indian bowling attack, if one had thought India stood no chance at that point of time he would probably have been right. MS Dhoni joined Kohli, who had already scored 31 off 30, in the middle. It was not surprising that the pair, two of the best ODI players in the game at the moment, did not allow the visitors to make any further inroads.

They combined to score 72 off the next 16.4 overs and by the time Kohli was caught behind off Glenn Maxwell’s bowling, India, at 148/5 in 29.4 and with Dhoni on 35 off 57, were in danger of getting bowled out under 250. But what followed was an immaculate depiction of how to pace an ODI game, from the Indian captain.

Johnson returned to haunt the Indian batsmen with the barrage of bouncers. This time Ravindra Jadeja, trying to fend off a shorter delivery, fell victim. In Ashwin (28 off 35), the Indian captain found able support to carry on with his gameplan.

He only took 55 balls off Watson and Faulkner to score 92 of his 139 runs. 36 runs were conceded in the last two overs and 34 of them came after Dhoni got a lucky reprieve in the form of Bailey’s drop catch.