Hyderabad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (59 n o, 72b, 6×4, 1×6) took a chase deep for the umpteenth time but it needed Kedar Jadhav’s (81 n o, 87b, 9×4, 1×6) street smartness to get India back on winning track as they beat Australia by six wickets in the first ODI here Saturday.
India reached the target in 48.2 overs, riding on a 141-run unconquered stand between Kedar and Dhoni, to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.
Clad in their brand new jerseys, the successful chase of 237 was a throwback to the good old 90s when Ajay Jadeja and Robin Singh would hunt down those sub 250 totals in exciting finishes. As has been the case these days, Dhoni was once again unable to rotate the strike at the start of his innings and the onus was on Kedar to hit the boundaries after they joined hands at 99 for four with skipper Virat Kohli (44) and his deputy Rohit Sharma (37) back in the hut. Fittingly, Dhoni finished the game with successive boundaries off Marcus Stoinis.
Earlier Indian bowlers controlled the proceedings like seasoned puppeteers pulling strings at will to restrict Australia to a sub-par 236 for seven.
It was a vastly different performance from the bowling unit which maintained discipline for the better part of the 50 overs with Mohammed Shami (2/44) showing the way.
Kuldeep Yadav (2/46), Ravindra Jadeja (0/33) and Kedar Jadhav (1/31) made up for a rare off-day by Jasprit Bumrah (2/60), that too, by his standards.
Even Usman Khawaja (50, 76b, 5×4, 1×6) and Glenn Maxwell (40, 51b, 5×4) — the top two contributors for Australia weren’t exactly comfortable against an Indian attack that bowled as many as 169 dot balls.
This effectively meant Australia couldn’t score 28.1 overs out of the 50 overs during Indian innings. What the statistics won’t reveal is the contribution of Kedar as the sixth bowler and Jadeja, who stifled the Aussies during the second Powerplay.
This was after Shami bowled a brilliant wicketless first spell which was seen off by Marcus Stoinis (37, 53b, 6×4) and Khawaja, who added 87 runs for the second wicket after early dismissal of Aaron Finch. It was Khawaja, who was first to break the shackles with a cover drive off Bumrah and a six off Kuldeep, introduced in the last over of the first powerplay.