"KL's way of batting and blueprint looked about right" - Marcus Stoinis after Australia's batting collapse in first ODI
Australian all-rounder Marcus Stoinis has urged the national team's batting line-up to play sensibly following their capitulation in the opening one-day of the three-game series in Mumbai. The West Australian reckons KL Rahul's batting approach was the way to go according to the conditions.
Australia entered the first ODI with eight proper batters and anticipated going hard was the way to go, especially after Mitchell Marsh's whirlwind 81 off 65 deliveries. While they cruised until the 20th over at 129-2, they lost their last eight wickets for 59 runs. In response, India wobbled to 83-5; however, an unbroken 108-run stand between KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja steered India with five wickets to spare.
.@klrahul scored a gritty unbeaten half-century in the chase & was #TeamIndia's top performer from the second innings of the first #iNDvAUS ODI 👌👌
A summary of his batting display 🔽 https://t.co/hSadbSphCp
Speaking to reporters after the first ODI, Stoinis, who was amongst those to register a single-figure score, acknowledged that Marsh's innings slightly misled them into going harder, contrary to taking the game deep. Hence, he wants the batting line-up to show better application in the second game in Vishakhapatnam on Sunday.
As quoted by Perth Now, the 33-year-old said:
"To an extent we might have gotten carried away watching Mitch bat and how well he struck them, and then thinking the score might need to be higher than what was necessary. There was a bit in the wicket. We need to be a bit better with our techniques and figure out how we're going to play that. I think KL's way of batting and blueprint looked about right."
Rahul walked in at 16-3, playing patiently and overcame Mitchell Starc's lethal opening spell to share two vital partnerships for India. The keeper-batter added 44 with Hardik Pandya, followed by a century-stand with Jadeja. He stayed unbeaten at 75 off 91 deliveries with seven fours and a six.
"We're experimenting with a few different combinations" - Marcus Stoinis
Despite having a deep batting line-up, Stoinis thinks Australia must take a measured approach and set up a solid base for the power-hitters. He added:
"We didn't sum the conditions up well enough and didn't score enough. We're experimenting with a few different combinations, playing eight batters. We understand that if we're going to play eight batters, we still need to play a certain way up until the 35th over or whatever it might be, and then when the time comes we can assert some authority on that with our back-end power hitters."
A tale of two halves for Australia's innings in the opening ODI. Mitch Marsh was brilliant, but so was Mohammed Shami's second spell #INDvAUS https://t.co/gbF7zG2jHn
David Warner and Alex Carey - both of whom missed the opening game - are likely to return for Sunday's clash as Australia look to keep the series alive.