Virat, Rohit falter in India’s rain marred loss to Australia in 1st ODI

Rohit and Kohli flop on return to international cricket in the rain-hit first ODI at Perth which Australia win by seven wickets

Kolkata: The return of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to international cricket lasted 22 balls in all as India endured a poor start to their white-ball tour of Australia. It was a seven-wicket defeat in the first ODI which had to be curtailed to a 26-over affair owing to four rain interruptions at Perth on Sunday.

India players leave the field following their defeat to Australia in the first ODI in Perth on Sunday. (AFP)

Both sides wanted to bowl first in damp conditions on a pitch that had very little grass. Mitchell Marsh won the toss to put India into bat and it turned out to be a grim outing for the visitors.

Perth is just warming up for the Australian summer with the sun playing hide and seek on a cloudy day. It proved to be ideal conditions for the indefatigable Josh Hazlewood who bowled accurately to menacing effect, delivering 35 dot balls while returning 2/20 in seven overs.

Equally tireless was Mitchell Starc, playing his first ODI in nearly a year but picking up from where he had left. He even produced a delivery that the speed gun clocked at 176.5 kph. Add to that the incessant rain-forced breaks and India soon looked out of depth in a format they rarely play now.

In such adverse conditions, India needed their most experienced batters to be firm, but both Kohli and Rohit looked scratchy before they were dismissed cheaply. Kohli’s eight-ball duck was particularly disappointing, given he was returning to a venue that had witnessed his last Test hundred last year.

To counter the accuracy of Starc and Hazlewood, Kohli was trying to open up his stance but ended up playing more away from his body. Starc was his chief tormentor, mixing up the lengths and teasing Kohli to drive away. More agonising was how Kohli was denied a single, the frustration prompting him to play more forward instead of letting the ball come on to his bat on a quick pitch and find the gaps. He was finally lured into a drive and brilliantly caught at backward point by Cooper Connolly.

Rohit did no better, hurried by Hazlewood’s bounce to edge to second slip after a slew of swing and miss shots. The first ball he faced was a 140.8 kph short of a good length delivery from Starc, and he smartly nudged it to short mid-on and took a quick single. There was a boundary off Starc hit so straight that mid-off gave up the chase as soon as the ball raced past him. But Hazlewood soon cut him to size with a bouncy delivery off length that Rohit walked across and completely missed the hoick. Two balls later, he was surprised by the extra bounce from short of length that he simply couldn’t resist poking.

Throughout this while, Gill was biding his time, caressing Hazlewood through cover for four, shouldering arms to the balls zipping around his off stump and keeping a sharp eye on the ones rearing from length. His dismissal came almost against the run of play, off an innocuous delivery from Nathan Ellis that strangled him down the leg. It was the sort of delivery Gill had to play at, but so feeble was the contact that India’s new ODI skipper failed to put it away from the grasp of the leaping wicketkeeper Josh Phillippe.

Three wickets down in nine overs, India were already staring at damage control. “When you lose three wickets in the Powerplay, you’re always trying to play a catch-up game,” said Gill during the post-match presentation. Why Axar Patel came ahead of KL Rahul at No.5 was a topic of heavy debate as India started getting distracted by the rain interruptions. Still, Axar did his job, farming the strike, hitting a few boundaries and trying to build a vital partnership with Rahul. Once he was dismissed, Rahul was almost on his own, shepherding the innings and trying to give it some momentum towards the end with consecutive sixes.

Arshdeep Singh injected some hope by removing Travis Head early with a square third-man trap. Marsh scored just two off his first nine deliveries but once he clubbed Arshdeep for a six, the Australian captain started to weigh in with a brutal assault that included two more sixes, off Mohammed Siraj and Harshit Rana. Axar removed Matthew Short but Phillippe came out swinging, ensuring that Australia reached 100 in 16 overs just after he fell to Washington Sundar. From there, Marsh stayed unbeaten on 46 to ensure a comfortable win for Australia.