Dhoni does a 'Jadeja' signalling Rohit Sharma to take a run

After the successful Test series, Virat Kohli’s men moved to the limited-overs format, locking horns with Aaron Finch’s Australian side in the opening ODI at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG). Australia batting first, got off to the worst start possible, losing their skipper after they added 8 runs on the board. A gritty inning from Alex Carey came to a halt at the end of the first ten overs, as India began to show ominous signs of a good performance.

However, Usman Khawaja and Shaun Marsh ensured Australia had a decent partnership and added 92 runs on the board before the dismissal of Khawaja. Peter Handscomb and Marcus Stoinis’ knocks in the middle-order ensured that Australia got to a decent total at the end of the 1st innings in Sydney.

With 288 runs on board, the onus was upon the bowlers to restrict the Indian top order batsmen. Australian bowlers were quickly on target, as the left-arm seamer Jason Behrendorff trapped the Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan in front of the stumps to give the hosts their first breakthrough. Jhye Richardson caused the havoc on the other end, as Virat Kohli and Ambati Rayudu were quickly wiped out of the chart.

MS Dhoni with the Jadeja wield:

At 4/3, it was up to Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni to resurrect the Indian batting order. The duo had a similar effect on the batting as Khawaja and Shaun Marsh had on the Australian batting. Rohit Sharma with the brutal shots, and MS Dhoni knocking off overs after overs dragged India out of trouble. Whenever Dhoni has played in recent years, there has been some or the other on-field antics that he has been involved in.

In the 29th over of the run-chase, Dhoni after seeing his partner Rohit Sharma at the non-striker end ball watching, wielded the bat in a Jadejasque manner to call Rohit for the run. By the time Rohit started from his end, the former Indian skipper was already half-way down the track, and in touching distance to the non-striker’s end.

In the end, it was an easy run for Team India, as the target started growing on the Indian batsmen. However, Rohit Sharma’s efforts were not enough as Australia got off to a winning start in the ODI series, winning by 34 runs.

Here is the video

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