Indian skipper Rohit Sharma admitted that the batting unit let the team down after they suffered a huge loss of 10 wickets against Australia in the second ODI at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam on Sunday.
The home team was skittled out for a meager score of 117 runs after they were put into bat by Steve Smith. There was swing and extra bounce on offer but Rohit feels it wasn’t a 117 kind of wicket.
Mitchell Starc was the wrecker–in–chief as the gun fast bowler got the ball to move back into the Indian right-handers to trouble them. Starc dismissed Shubman Gill in the very first over of the innings and also in a similar fashion as he had done at Wankhede.
Rohit then flashed hard against Starc and he was caught at slip after an outside edge. SKY’s woes against an incoming ball continued as he was plumbed on the first ball he faced against Australia’s left arm quick. Starc returned with impressive figures of 5-53 and took his ninth five-wicket haul in ODIs.
Virat Kohli top-scored with 31 runs but he was also dismissed LBW by Nathan Ellis. None of the other Indian batters could get going in the first innings. Ellis and Sean Abbot took two and three wickets respectively to put India under pressure.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “ If you lose a game, it is just disappointing, We didn’t apply ourselves with the bat. Didn’t put enough runs on the board. It wasn’t a 117 wicket. Kept losing wickets and that didn’t allow us to get the runs we wanted. Once we lost Shubman in the first over, myself and Virat got 30-35 runs quickly. But then I lost my wicket and we lost a couple of wickets back to back. That put us on the back foot. It’s always tough to come back from that situation.
He added, “Today wasn’t the day for us. Starc is a quality bowler. He has been doing it for Australia with the new ball. He kept bowling to his strength. Swung the new ball and took the oddball away. Kept the batters guessing. Marsh has to be one of the top players going around when it comes to power-hitting. He backs himself to do that every now and then. Definitely in top 3 and 4 when it comes to power hitting.”
India will want to come up with a better batting performance in the deciding ODI of the series, which will be played at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, in Chennai on Wednesday.
