Virat Kohli ‘s 41st ODI Century goes in vain as Australia beat India comprehensively in the third ODI on 8th of March 2019 at Ranchi. Although India leads the five-match series by 2-1 today’s match has put the Indian team in a critical situation. With the World Cup just a few months away, India’s batting woes are something that needs serious attention.
Unlike India, Australian batsmen and bowlers have started performing consistently. Australian batsman Khawaja scored a century and bowler Zampa took three crucial wickets for his team.
Talking about the match, Team India won the toss and decided to bowl first. Australian Captain Aaron Finch took the responsibility of opening for his team along with Usman Khawaja. Both the openers gave a tremendous start and put on a 193 run partnership for the first wicket.
While Finch scored 93 runs off the 99 deliveries that he faced, before getting dismissed by Kuldeep Yadav, Usman Khawaja scored his maiden ODI century before getting caught by Bumrah with Shami as the bowler. He was adjudged Man of the Match for his brilliant performance with the bat.
Maxwell scored a quick 42 off 31 before he was run out by Jadeja. Australian team set up a target of 313 runs for team India to chase.
Indian top order failed to fire for the third time in succession in this series. Shikhar Dhawan’s poor run with the bat continues. He scored just one run off 10 balls. Rohit Sharma had another bad match. He managed to score only 14 runs before he was out, LBW to Pat Cummins.
Spectators had lots of expectations from MS Dhoni as Ranchi is his hometown. But Dhoni fell for 26 off 42 balls. He was dismissed by Zampa.
Wickets were falling at one end and Virat Kohli was scoring runs freely at the other end. Kohli scored his 41st ODI Century. His innings was all magic and poetry.
His footwork, timing and shot selection were a treat to watch. He was severe on all bowlers and hit them to all parts of the ground. Even in Zampa’s over in which his leg stump was uprooted, he had hit him for two successive fours and and in Zampa’s previous over, he had hit a mighty six.
Kohli’s tremendous innings came to a halt at 123 runs off 95 balls when Zampa cleaned him up. After Kohli’s dismissal, the Indian team managed to fetch just 30 more runs, taking the score to 281.
Indian batsmen need to take more responsibility in order to win the series and with the ODI world cup just round the corner, there isn’t much time left for them to iron out their shortcomings.
