Who Said What: World reacts as India lost the first ODI in Sydney
After winning the Test series in an emphatic fashion, the Indian team started their ODI campaign in Sydney. Aaron Finch won the toss and elected to bat on a flat SCG track.
Aussies started cautiously scoring 41 runs in the first Power play but lost both the openers. Shaun Marsh and Usman Khawaja then steadied the innings and built a crucial 92 run partnership before the latter perished after playing an aggressive shot to Ravindra Jadeja.
Peter Handscomb in partnership with Marcus Stoinis boosted the Australian innings scoring 93 in the last 10 overs and taking Australia to a respected total of 288 runs.
India started their chase in the worst possible manner with the scoreboard reading 4-3 and Shikhar, Virat and Rayadu all back in the pavilion. In came India’s most experienced batsmen in MS Dhoni and along with Rohit Sharma, he steadied the Indian innings. Dhoni perished to a wrong umpiring decision after scoring a crucial 50.
From there, it was Rohit Sharma fighting a lone battle against the Aussies but it was too much to ask from and he too couldn’t take India across the line as he went after scoring 133 runs off just 129 balls.
India eventually lost the match by 34 runs. Jhye Richardson was the pick of the bowlers as he picked up four wickets in his 10 overs giving away just 26 runs. Let us have a look at who said what:
Virat Kohli (Indian captain): "We're not very pleased with the way we played. I think we were fine with the ball. That wicket was 300 plus par. I think we did well with the ball. We thought 288 was quite gettable. Losing three wickets upfront is never good. I thought Rohit was outstanding and MS supported him but I thought we could have done better with the tempo of the game and we fell short. They took the game deep to give us a chance. MS got out at that stage. That put pressure on Rohit. One more good partnership and we would have got close. But losing three wickets up front was the problem and Australia were professional enough not to let us back in. I think we have to take it as a day when Australia played better than us. We're not too stressed about results. I think days like these make you aware of things you have to work on as a team."
Aaron Finch (Australian Captain): "Very pleased. We knew that they'd try and take it deep and luckily we were able to take wickets and stem the flow. I thought we were around par. I thought with the earlier start dew wouldn't come in. We felt the wicket would slow up a bit so I thought it was par. I thought the partnership between Khawaja and Marsh set us up and Pete Handscomb played a gem. Anytime you get a team three down early and three big guns it's very important. I thought Jason handled his nerves brilliantly. And then the youngster Jhye is full of confidence and he's got a bright future ahead of him. There's always room to improve."
Jhye Richardson (Player of the Match): "Credit to them. They gave us a run through the middle. But like Finchy said when you get teams three down that's what you aim for. Getting (Kohli) is one that I'm going to treasure for a long time. But more happy to get the win."
Here is how the twitter reacted:
1) Harsha Bhogle
2) Boria Majumdar
3) Gaurav Kapur
4) Aakash Chopra
5) Vikram Sathaye
6) Michael Vaughan
7) Cricketwallah:
8) Harsha Bhogle:
9) Snehal Pradhan: