After facing a comprehensive loss in the first One-Day International (ODI) against Australia, India made a strong comeback and won the three-match series 2-1.
Indian captain Virat Kohli grabbed the ‘Player of the series’ award for his 189 runs in three innings.. Rohit Sharma, on the other hand, won the ‘Player of the match’ recognition for his 29th century in the series decider at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Man of the Series: Virat Kohli #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/W5le3myYRB
— CricketTimes.com (@CricketTimesHQ) January 20, 2020
After the game, the Australian skipper Aaron Finch revealed reasons for the defeat and said that lack of set batsmen in the slog overs cost them heavily.
“I think probably guys not getting through to those last couple of overs [hurt us]. In the last two games, we have had the bowlers batting for the majority of the last few overs. We saw in Rajkot, the damage that KL [Rahul] could do in the back end because he was a settled batter. I think that’s an area we just missed a couple of tricks. Just not having an in the batter being in and having faced 20 or 30 balls to get us deeper and get us to the back end,” said Finch.
“Credit to India, their death bowling in the last few games was exceptional. Shami was nailing his yorkers, Saini in the last two games and Bumrah. In both games they were exceptional. You can look at where we could have improved but also, you’ve got to give some credit to India. They were unbelievable at the death,” added Finch.
The 33-old-year also praised Kohli and Rohit for their outstanding performance in the series. Finch even referred Kohli as the greatest ODI player of all time.
“They’ve got Virat who is probably the greatest ODI player of all-time, and Rohit who’d probably be in the top five batters of all-time. They’re exceptional, and the thing with the Indian side at the moment is their experienced players are getting the job done in the big games,” said Finch at the post-match press conference.
“Rohit’s 100, especially without Shikhar there tonight, for them to shuffle and their two most dominant players to still get the majority of the runs is a sign of a really settled and really quality top-order,” added Finch.
Australia were thrashed by ‘Men in Blue’ in the Bengaluru ODI. The visitors lost the third and final game by seven wickets.
🇮🇳🇮🇳#TeamIndia 💙 pic.twitter.com/IQmm5Vrf8I
— BCCI (@BCCI) January 19, 2020
The Kohli-led side will now focus on the upcoming New Zealand’s tour, where they will play five T20Is, three ODIs, and two Tests. The first T20I will take place on Friday (Jan 24) at Eden Park in Auckland.
