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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Virat Kohli steals George Bailey's thunder


NAGPUR: When ICC introduced two new balls and a new Powerplay rule, its aim was to have a proper balance between bat and ball. At the moment though it's just not happening.

Scorecard


No total appears safe these days as India made a mockery of Australia's huge total (350-6) for the second time in the series, chasing down the target of 351 with six wickets intact and three balls to spare.


If it's a chase then Virat Kohli has to be the protagonist. Kohli (115, 66b, 18x4, 1x6) came out with purpose and changed the course of the game with some brilliant strokeplay to notch up his 17th one-day hundred.


Kohli did what he has done in most of the successful chases; keep his cool under pressure, pace his innings nicely and stay till the end to keep India's hopes alive of winning their first bilateral home series against Australia.


This after Shikhar Dhawan (100, 102b, 12x4) and Rohit Sharma (79, 89b, 7x4, 3x6) laid the foundation with a 178-run stand. They have had five 100-plus stands this year. No other opening pair has these many since 2011.


However, it was Kohli's innings that made all the difference in the end. Despite losing Suresh Raina and Yuvraj in the space of four balls, India hardly panicked as the 25-year-old finished the job in the company of MS Dhoni (25, 23b, 2x4) with a 61-run fifth-wicket alliance.


India, who were considered poor chasers not too long ago have now become experts at it. Hobart, Dhaka, Jaipur and Nagpur will go down as significant milestones in their ODI history. And all four featured blazing tons from Kohli.


There was a lot of similarity in India's chase between Jaipur and Nagpur. Dhawan was on 18 at Jaipur when Haddin dropped him and that proved vital in the outcome of the match. On Wednesday, he was given a life by Glenn Maxwell when he was on 19.


The left-hander made the Australians pay for it by scoring a brilliant hundred. His fluent knock provided Rohit ample time to get his eye in. Rohit missed out on a hundred, but he had done his job.


While the Australian bowlers came a cropper thanks to some brilliant batting by India, their Indian counterparts too went through a torrid time after Dhoni won the toss and put Australia into bat.


After playing on flat tracks so far in the series, India were hoping to get some turn when they arrived in Nagpur. They got plenty of it from the Jamtha wicket, but still failed to contain the Aussies.


India again struggled to stop Bailey. They continued to leak runs in the middle-overs and had no clue what to do in the death overs. Bailey (156, 114b, 13x4, 6x6) and Shane Watson (102, 94b, 13x4, 3x6) hammered the hapless Indian bowlers to all corners of the ground with their third-wicket stand of 168 runs. The spin trio of Ashwin, Mishra and Jadeja leaked 220 runs in 30 overs.


Bailey had another fruitful stand of 120 with Adam Voges (44*, 38b, 5x4).


As good as Watson's and Bailey's efforts were, Virat's knock ensured that they were nothing but footnotes.






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Shweta Pandey

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