India vs Australia 2020, 3rd ODI: 3 reasons why India won the match
India continued their domination over Australia in the 3rd ODI at Bengaluru as well and won it by 7 wickets. With this victory, India also conquered the series 2-1.
Opting to bat first at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Australia lost both their openers early. However, a determined partnership between Steve Smith (131 runs off 132 balls) and Marnus Labuschagne (54 runs off 64 balls) rescued them and courtesy their 127-run stand for the 3rd wicket, Australia managed to post 286-9 in 50 overs.
Chasing 287, India were off to a decent start as the openers added 69 runs for the first wicket. Although KL Rahul (19 runs off 27 balls) departed before scoring big, the pair of Rohit Sharma (119 runs off 128 balls) and Virat Kohli (89 runs off 91 balls) kept India in the game and courtesy a fine cameo of 44 runs (35 balls) from Shreyas Iyer's bat, India achieved the target with 2.3 overs to spare. Now let us look at the three main reasons because of which India won the series decider:
1. The Indian bowlers had a successful last 10 overs
Australia were 223-4 at the end of the 40th over and with Steve Smith and Alex Carey (35 runs off 36 balls) at the crease, it was expected that the kangaroos would go hard after the Indian bowlers to post a competitive total.
But the Indian bowling unit did a fantastic job to bounce back and dismissed Carey and Ashton Turner in quick succession which left Steve Smith with the tail-enders to carry on the Australian innings. Smith continued to score, but was dismissed off Mohammed Shami's (4/63) bowling before things got out of Australia's hands.
The Indian bowlers gave away 63 runs and scalped 5 wickets in the last 10 overs, leaving the Aussie innings well short of a target at-par on a batting-friendly wicket with short boundaries.
2. The partnership between Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli
After the departure of KL Rahul, the Indian skipper Virat Kohli joined Rohit Sharma and took the run-chase forward. At that time, India still needed 220 runs to win from 37.3 overs and needed a strong partnership to get closer to the target.
The duo looked in sublime form and batted sensibly avoiding any loss of wickets to stitch a 137-run partnership for the second wicket, almost taking Australia out of the game. Both did extremely well to counter the Australian bowling attack and kept the required run-rate well under control.
While Sharma departed after scoring 119 runs (128 balls) in the 37th over, Kohli continued to bat and had a 68-run partnership with Shreyas Iyer before being dismissed by Josh Hazlewood (1/55) on his individual score of 89 (91 balls).
Though both the batsmen got out before finishing the game for India, their solid batting had already set the stage for India's victory.
3. Failure of the Australian bowlers to take early wickets
Defending a below-par target, the Aussie bowlers needed to take some early wickets to put India under pressure. And having a world-class bowling attack, it was not an impossible task for the kangaroos.
However, the Australian bowlers could not find a wicket till the 11th over when Ashton Agar (1/38) trapped KL Rahul right in front of the wicket. The wicket could have been the much-needed key to get past the Indian batting order, but the bowlers failed to produce any threat to the Rohit Sharma-Virat Kohli pair, allowing them to continue the chase.
The bowlers did get their wickets, but it was too late by then as the target was well within India's reach. Wickets in the initial overs could have kept Australia in the match, but not getting those at that stage pushed Australia on the backfoot and allowed India a comfortable chase to clinch the series.
Also read: India vs Australia 2020: 5 things we learnt from the series