Indian skipper Rohit Sharma admitted they didn’t bat well after they lost the third ODI against Australia at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai by 21 runs. With this win, Australia claimed the series 2-1 and also the numero spot in the ICC ODI rankings.
This loss also broke India’s unbeaten four-year streak in the home ODI series. Meanwhile, the hosts had to chase 270 runs but they were bundled out for 248 runs. The home team was motoring along for 146-2 but lost the next four wickets for only 39 runs and it was the turning point of the game.
The Australian spin duo of Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa got help from the surface and picked six wickets between them. Virat Kohli scored his 65th ODI half-century whereas Hardik Pandya scored a run-a-ball 40 but India could not get the partnerships in the run-chase.
In fact, India’s batting unit did come under scrutiny as they couldn’t deliver the goods for the team in the series. The hosts huffed and puffed to chase 189 in the first game, and then they were skittled out for only 117 runs in the second game.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “I don’t think it was too many runs. We didn’t bat well. Partnerships are crucial and that’s something we failed to do today. You are brought up playing in these type of wickets, it’s important you apply. After the start, it was important for one batter to carry on and take the game deep. It just didn’t happen.”
He added, “Lot of takeaways. We can take a lot of positives from the nine ODIs since January. We need to understand where we need to improve. It’s a collective failure, we can take a lot of learnings from this series. Credit to the Australians. Both the spinners applied the pressure and so did their seamers.”
India will be disappointed with their batting performance as they were not able to come up with a collective show. A lot of Indian batters got off to starts but none of them could go on to get a big score for the team in the run-chase.
