AUS vs IND | 3rd ODI: Pandya-Jadeja, bowlers help India to confidence-building win

Finally, after frustrating bowling performances and not so perfect batting performances in the last two games, the Indian team pulled off a collective effort in the final match to salvage some pride and win the contest by 13 runs. This avoided the ignominy of a whitewash at the start of a long and gruelling Australian summer. India had set a target of 303 for the hosts to chase which did not look improbable looking at the past records at the Manuka Oval in Canberra. But the Australian batting line up that Indians bowled to in this game was different. Absence of David Warner made a big difference at the top of the innings.

Indian bowling lineup, which was refreshed with changes such as the inclusion of Shardul Thakur and debutant T Natarajan in place of Navdeep Saini and Mohammed Shami, also looked better and sharper with the new ball. Jasprit Bumrah found  good rhythm and produced wicket-taking deliveries in the first power play. After dismal performances in the last two ODIs, Indian bowlers were up to the task in Canberra and struck twice in the first 10 overs which was a big change from the last two games. Natarajan got Marnus Labuschgane, who opened in place of Warner, when he tried a pull off the front foot to a ball that was not short enough. Shardul, on the other hand, got Steve Smith, in a way that hinted it was India’s night in the capital city of Australia. 

Shardul got Smith strangled down the leg side off a ball that deserved to be hit for four towards the fine leg boundary. But Smith could only edge it to Rahul behind the wicket. The situation could have been much worse for the hosts but for the fielding by the Indians who did not quite learn the lessons from the last two defeats. Men in Blue blew off three chances in three consecutive overs during the power play. First, Dhawan dropped a catch at first slip when Bumrah got the outside edge of Finch’s bat. Then, Jadeja missed another chance to dismiss the Australian skipper, this time through a direct hit, in the sixth and the seventh overs of the innings respectively.

Finch completed his third fifty of the series and looked well-set to take the game away from India. However, when Jadeja lured him into playing a big shot over long-on with a flighted delivery, Dhawan was up to the task of taking a catch at the boundary, albeit not before the ball popped out of his hands to be gathered in the second attempt.

Labuschagne being shifted to open in the absence of Warner allowed all-rounders Moises Henriques and the much-talked-about debutante Cameron Green to bat at numbers five and sixth respectively. Both of them showed promise but could not nail their claim with a valuable contribution and wasted their starts. Henriques played some good shots but found Dhawan at short-mid wicket just when he was settling in for a big score. 

Green walked out to bat after the fall of Henriques and showed potential through his strokes. He was not ready to be dictated by Jadeja and deposited him deep in the Bob Hawke Stand, over the midwicket boundary, in the same over in which Finch was shown the door by the left-armer. However, Green’s ambitions were cut short by Jadeja himself as he dived valiantly to pluck a catch at deep square leg when the right-hander tried to take on Kuldeep Yadav.

The hosts’ innings was in tatters but the dangerous duo of Glenn Maxwell and wicketkeeper Alex Carrey was still at the crease. They have the experience of winning games for Australia from difficult situations in the past, as they did in September this year against England when the team was down and out pursuing a big target.

The pair put on a 50-run partnership and it was looking threatening for India. But misjudging a single from the area under patrol by the electric Virat Kohli cost Carey his wicket and the chase was again derailed. Maxwell got it back on track with lusty hits and help of Ashton Agar. The pair put on another 50-run stand and started to press their foot on the accelerator from the 43rd over of the innings. 

Maxwell took 12 runs off Kuldeep and 18 runs off Natarajan in the 43rd and 44th over of the chase. The situation now demanded Kohli to bring back his ace paceman. Bumrah justified his leadership position in the team by dismissing Maxwell just when the team needed him to come good. The hosts could never come back to an advancing position in the game after Maxwell’s wicket as the tourists held on to their nerves even with a manageable required rate for the hosts in the last over.

It all came down to wickets in hand and Indian pacers made sure that Australia did not have too many batsmen left in the end to snatch the game away from them. In a fitting end, Bumrah got the final wicket in the Australian innings by trapping Zampa in front of the stumps, in the last over of the match, as the tourists finally opened their account on a long tour that would definitely test all of their resolve and temperament with each passing day. 

India didn’t only bowl well in the powerplay but also broke another chain of frustrating losses at the toss when Virat Kohli won the toss for the first time on this tour and decided to bat first on a pitch that looked as flat as the two that were used in the first two matches. However, the strip used at the Manuka Oval offered a lot more pace and bounce that kept Aussie pacers in the hunt.

In a surprise for the majority of Indian fans, but not for those who are followers of Kohli’s style of captaincy, Mayank Agarwal was dropped from the playing XI for an equally deserving and promising Shubman Gill. Dhawan and Gill started solidly but the pressure of playing on a flat pitch was clearly visible on Dhawan who looked like forcing the issue and, at the end, perished doing so against Sean Abbott who outsmarted him by sliding his fingers across the ball when the left-hander came down the track to put pressure on him from the start of his first spell.

When Virat Kohli joined Gill in the middle, the duo started to put on a show of aggressive as well as stylish shotmaking. Gill matched his skipper shot by shot, from pull to the drive. Gill looked solid and was untroubled by the Australian bowlers but the introduction of spinners made him greedy of latching onto some boundaries and Asthon Agar found him in front of the stumps when he tried taking him over square leg by a sweep shot. It was more a case of Gill dismissing himself than Agar getting him out and the right-hander must have been disappointed for throwing his wicket away after doing the hard work against the new balls.

Shreyas Iyer was looking confident before this match and looked composed at the start. He was also helped by the Australian attack that didn't make him face ‘chin music’ he was so looking forward to. However, Iyer yet again failed to seize the opportunity by being unable to put on a sizable contribution for the team. The Delhi Capitals captain committed an age-old mistake that batsmen who have faced troubles scoring quickly usually do. Since he was having difficulty against pacers, the right-hander tried to go all guns blazing against the leg-spin of Zampa. The leggie could beat him with the knowledge of an inevitable attack from him by varying his pace of the ball and Iyer was caught at point playing a premeditated inside out drive over cover.

Fall of Iyer derailed the Indian innings as both KL Rahul and Virat Kohli fell not long after. Agar was once again smart enough to be too full for KL Rahul, who turned out to be the second batsman to get out playing the sweep shot against the left-arm spinner.

Wickets at regular intervals did not let Kohli bat with his usual freedom and it showed in his strike rate. Virat, too, was trying hard to march towards a total that would give comfort to bowlers while defending and in that process, was caught short of the pitch of the ball when Josh Hazlewood beat him comprehensively with a leg-cutter that bounced sharply from the good length, around the off stump line. 

Hazlewood has dismissed Kohli in all the three ODIs of the series and when he dismissed the Indian captain in the 32nd over of the innings, an alarm bell must have rung in the dressing room of the tourists with only Jadeja and Pandya remaining as the last recognised batting pair. It was they on whom the team relied to get them to a total they could dare to defend in a game where the team’s pride was at stake.

Just when the Aussies would have felt that they have gone ahead in the game, Pandya and Jadeja unleashed the best of their batting prowess as the duo took time to settle and steady the destabilised ship of the Indian batting. When Jadeja came to bat, Pandya was batting with a strike rate of nearly 50. But he reversed the role of a sheet anchor straightway with Jadeja as the left-hander took time to settle down. The duo kept on milking the Aussies for singles and errorless boundaries (only handful) before cutting loose in the last five overs of the innings.

The pair started their onslaught from the 46th over as Pandya unleashed his ferocious strokes and deposited Sean Abbott for 17 runs. The Men in Blue were back in the reckoning to post a fighting total which looked a long way away from their grasp after the fall of Kohli. Jadeja was not to miss out and he took a liking to Josh Hazlewood and hit him for two massive sixes in completely different directions, thereby showcasing his repertoire of shots. This was another proof of his development as a batsman and finisher in the Indian batting line up.

The pair was up and running and so was the Indian scorecard which looked set for a total that would challenge a Warner-less Australian line-up. What followed in the next over was absolute carnage as Jaddu started toying with Abbott’s bowling and with Australia's tactics. He was smart enough to predict the line of attack that the bowler would employ through the field settings in which no men were stationed deep behind square on the leg side, The left-hander walked across to the off stump and virtually swept Abbot over square leg for a boundary. 

Abbott’s inexperience was telling as he could not bowl to his field and kept on delivering short balls when the field placements demanded him to bowl full and straight. Three big shots followed on three short balls and Jadeja completed a masterful half-century in the process. Hazlewood resurrected a bit in the next over but still conceded 10 runs while Abbott followed with another over that yielded 13 runs to give Indians a massive opportunity. The visitors took it with both hands.

This set up India's win. But the redeeming victory came not before Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell threatened to inflict an embarrassing clean sweep. India validated the argument that toss makes a big impact on the outcome of the game by putting up a total that the bowlers could defend. But Virat Kohli and his men would be honest to themselves if they assess their frailties that have been exposed in the series which they lost 1-2.

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