India vs Australia: 2017 5 reasons why India won the first One-Day International
The first One-Day International between India and Australia turned out to be a one-sided affair as the hosts comprehensively beat the Kangaroos by a margin of 26 runs as per the Duckworth-Lewis method. The win ensured that India opened their account and took a lead of 1-0 in the series.
Under overcast conditions, Virat Kohli absolutely had no hesitation in batting first. After a flurry of wickets in the first-half of their innings, Virat Kohli’s men showed resilience and set Australia a target of 282 runs.
However, rain threatened to play spoilsport and halted play for quite a while after the completion of India’s innings. Nevertheless, the rain stopped in the nick of time and Australia were given a revised target of 164 runs.
During their run-chase, apart from Glenn Maxwell, no other batsmen got the measure of the Indian bowling. Consequently, the visitors stumbled to the hefty defeat. As we move ahead, we take a look at five reasons why India won the first ODI at the M.A Chidambaram Stadium.
#5 Australia’s failure to capitalise on easy target
After rain halted play for the most part of Australia’s innings, the Kangaroos were set a target of 164 runs in 21 overs at a required run-rate which started at 7.81. In a generation of slam-bang cricket, a required run-rate of eight in around twenty overs isn’t a hefty task for an established limited-overs side.
However, Australia made a meal of the target and were never in contention to chase the runs down. They got off to a slow start and also lost wickets at regular intervals, which hardly allowed them to inject momentum into their innings.
For a short while, Maxwell threatened to take the game away from India with a breezy knock of 39 runs off 18 balls. However, after he lost his wicket, Australia never got back into the contest and finished with 137 runs for the loss of 9.