India vs Australia, 5th ODI - Who Said What

India have lost the five-match ODI series for the first time after being 2-0 up. Australia became the fifth team in the history of ODI cricket to win the series after being 0-2 down. The Men in Yellow took up the challenge and made a stunning comeback. They were clinical in the decider with the bat and with the ball and went on win it by 35 runs defending a total of 273 runs.

Rohit Sharma was the only man to score a half-century in the Indian batting line-up. They had lost six wickets for the score of 132 in the chase and that effort is never while chasing a total of 273 runs. Virat Kohli endured a rare failure while Rishabh Pant and Vijay Shankar couldn’t make the most of the opportunity. Kedar Jadhav though took Bhuvneshwar Kumar with him and kept India’s hopes alive.

But the required run-rate kept increasing and when it came to churning out big runs in the death overs, both of them perished thanks to some brilliant bowling from Australia. Eventually, India were bowled out for 237 in 50 overs as they conceded the series at home after a long time.

Khawaja notches up another ton

Earlier in the day, Usman Khawaja lit up the Feroz Shah Kotla with his exceptional batting. His century helped Australia get off a brilliant start and at one stage, they were sitting pretty at 175/1 after 33 overs. Even Peter Handscomb continued to be consistent and his half-century has more or less sealed his place in the side now. But once both of them were sent back, the runs didn’t come easy for the visitors.

The Men in Yellow could only add 97 runs for the loss of eight wickets in last 17 overs as Australia ended up at 272 runs. However, the score was enough for them to seal a historic series win in the end.

Man of the Match and Series, Usman Khawaja said:

It’s a lot of fun scoring hundreds and even more winning games. Very good to come back from 0-2 down, and never easy to beat India at home. I just played depending on the conditions. Our spinners, and our batters adapted really well and it was a team performance.

Finch batted beautifully, there have been tough wickets and high-scoring ones. The batters chipped in, the bowling group chipped in, and credit to all the support staff because the atmosphere was really great even after we lost the first two games.

Australia captain, Aaron Finch said:

 It’s unbelievable. The resilience and the fight that we showed was incredible. We’ve had our backs against the wall for a while now, but I’m really proud of the group for coming back. It’s important to have a balanced side. We need a good balance of attack and defence.

You need good batsmanship on these wickets against these really talented guys like Kuldeep, Chahal and Jaddu. Like I said, people have written us off for quite a while now, but the team that we have can win us the series, and they can win us the World Cup. It was a great series all round even though India beat us resoundingly in Nagpur.

India captain, Virat Kohli said:

Yeah we thought it was a gettable target. They got away from us a little bit at the end, and 15-20 more than we thought we were going to concede. One or two overs can make a whole lot of a difference, but if you look at the overall series Australia played with more passion, hunger and heart and they deserved to win. They were brave in pressure situations compared to our game, especially in the last 3 games, the way they handled the pressure, they really deserved to win.

We didn’t even consider the dew in this game, because we can’t control that. We can’t take any excuses out of this series, we have to do what’s in front of us to the best of our abilities and have to live up to the potential we have as a side.

It’s good that we had such games as we should be good enough to bowl with a wet ball or bat on a slowish sluggish surface. The guys will reflect on the series quite a bit It’s been a long season, and we can be proud of the cricket we have played over the last few months. Both teams played with equal intensity but the deserving side won in the end as I said before.

We are more or less sorted with what we want to do. The guys just need to get their roles for the world cup and expect them to stand up and deliver. Just one spot in the side that needs some discussion. The last three games were all about giving the fringe guys some chances, but that’s not an excuse at all.

You don’t need any motivation for the World Cup. All the sides will enjoy the tournament. Full stadiums. We just want to relive the big moments and do well in the World Cup.

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