Hyderabad: Indian bowlers restricted Australia at the score of 236 in the first ODI of their ongoing five-match series here at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Saturday.
Opting to bat first, Australia did not make best of the starts as their skipper and opening batsman Aaron Finch continued with his poor run of form and departed back to pavilion for a duck in the second over of the match.
The Australian innings was, however, stabilised by Usman Khawaja and Marcus Stoinis who built an 87-run partnership to get their side out of the troubled waters.
At a time when the partnership started to look threatening for the Indians, skipper Virat Kohli brought in go-to man Kedar Jadhav into the attack. The right-arm spinner did not disappoint his captain and gave India the much needed breakthrough.
Stoinis (37) misread the high release delivery of Jadhav and gave away an easy catch to Kohli at short midwicket.
Looking determined on the crease, Khawaja also followed Stoinis to the pavilion after being caught by Vijay Shankar, in what was a brilliant catching effort.
The next batting pair Glenn Maxwell and Peter Handscomb built a small partnership of 36 runs off 37 balls to keep the score board ticking for Australia. Spinner Yadav striked again and lured Handscomb (19) with a tossed up delivery to pick his wicket.
Australia got the biggest jolt when their last hope of achieving a big target got sunk with the wicket of Maxwell. Mohammed Shami flattened off Maxwell’s stumps with a good length delivery when he was playing at the score of 40.
Nathan-Coulter Nile and Alex Carey tried to take the Australian innings forward with a combined commendable effort of 62 runs but no other player could make any significant contribution.
Khawaja remained the top-scorer for Australia with a knock of 50 runs.
For India, Shami, Yadav and Bumrah scalped two wickets each while Kedar Jadhav contributed with one priced wicket of Stoinis.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]