NE SPORTS BUREAU
BENGALURU, JAN 19
Skipper Virat Kohli and Vice Captain Rohit Sharma’s partnership helped India thrash Australia by 7 wickets in the third and final ODI at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday. India clinched the three match series by 2-1.
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are easily two of the best white-ball batsmen in the world at the moment. The duo once again proved their class with the bat as they combined to pull off a successful chase for India.
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While Rohit notched up his 29th ODI century enroute to a brilliant knock of 119 runs, Kohli missed his ton by a whisker scoring a magnificent 89 off 91 balls. India lost the first ODI by ten wickets in Mumbai but bounced back to win the next two games on the trot and claim the series with another impressive all-round show. This is India’s 200th ODI win at home and seventh straight series win across all formats of the game starting from October 2019.
Chasing a challenging total of 287 runs on a tough wicket at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, openers Rohit and KL Rahul got India off to a flyer with a 69-run stand for the first wicket. Rahul was promoted to open the innings after Shikhar Dhawan injured his shoulders while fielding and didn’t come out to bat. However, his absence was not missed as Rohit and Rahul took control from the first ball.
Ashton Agar drew the first blood for Australia in the form of Rahul after an accurate review as the in-form right-hander was dismissed after scoring 19 off 27 balls. While Australia would have been happy with Rahul’s departure, what followed was an absolute nightmare for the visitors as Kohli stepped out to bat at number three and combined with Rohit to put on a match-winning 137 run partnership for the second wicket.
Rohit became the 4th fastest batsman to complete 9,000 ODI runs during his 119-run knock by achieving the feat in 217 innings. He surpassed the likes of Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, who took 228 and 235 innings respectively to reach the milestone. Kohli tops the elite list having scored 9,000 runs in 194 innings which is the fastest by any batsman in the world.
Kohli, on the other hand, became the fastest to score 5,000 ODI runs as captain enroute to his 89 off 91 balls. The Indian skipper surpassed former captain MS Dhoni (127) by achieving the feat in just 82 innings. He missed his century by a whisker after getting dismissed by Josh Hazlewood in the 46th over.
Shreyas Iyer finally found his rhythm and slammed 44 off 35 balls to finish the chase for India with 15 balls to spare. Earlier, Mohammed Shami had produced another bowling master class as he picked up a four-wicket haul to help the hosts restrict Australia on 286/9 despite a brilliant 131-run knock from Steve Smith.
