After an evenly contested Border-Gavaskar Trophy, India and Australia are facing off in the three-match ODI series starting today at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. India opted to bowl first and their bowlers led by Mohammed Shami put in a clinical performance bowling the visitors out for 188. In the process, the Men in Blue shattered their own record for taking the least number of deliveries to dismiss the Kangaroos.
The Men in Blue's previous record was created when they had taken all the Australian wickets in 35.5 overs in Indore in 2001. However, on Friday (March 17), India bettered that record by one ball and bowled them out in 35.4 overs in Mumbai. However, they are still far from the overall record which belongs to New Zealand who had bowled them out in 24.2 overs in 2016.
Despite having restricted Australia to 188 in the series opener, the home team who are without their captain Rohit Sharma for this match, find themselves in a spot of bother, losing 3 wickets inside the first 10 overs. Left-arm speedster Mitchell Starc has bowled brilliantly well so far in this match and the hosts would want a partnership that could weather the storm and help them chase down this total to take a 1-0 lead.
Clinical bowling performance from Team India in Mumbai
Shami was the wrecker in chief for the hosts as he scalped 3 wickets for 17 runs. Mohammed Siraj was also impressive and finished with figures of 3 for 29. All other Indian bowlers- Hardik Pandya (1/29), Ravindra Jadeja (2/46), Kuldeep Yadav (1/48)- barring Shardul Thakur were amongst the wickets but Thakur only got two overs.
The second and the third ODI matches of this series are scheduled on March 19 and March 22 respectively in Visakhapatnam and Chennai. Post the series, players participating in the IPL will join their respective franchises. IPL 2023 is set to kick off on March 31.