A monumental batting effort from the Indian batters at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore helped the Men in Blue register their highest-ever ODI total against Australia as they piled up 389 for the loss of four wickets in their stipulated 50 overs.
India bettered their previous total of 383 against the Aussies that came while playing at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on November 2, 2013. It was the same contest where Rohit Sharma has scored his first-ever double ton (209 off 158 balls) in ODI cricket.
India were on the verge of scaling the 400-run mark for the seventh time in the history of ODIs but an economical last over by Sean Abbott where he just gave away 10 runs prevented the KL Rahul-led side from breaching the 400-run mark as they fell one shy of the same. The foundation stone of such a domineering batting performance was laid by the duo of Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer. The duo stitched a 200-run stand after Ruturaj Gaikwad fell cheaply at an individual score of 8 in the fourth over the innings.
The partnership between Gill and Iyer is now the fourth-highest stand (for any wicket) against Australia for India in ODIs. Though the batting duo of Gill and Iyer provided the rest of the batting order an ideal platform to launch a late onslaught, they departed soon after reaching their tons. Gill scored 104 off 97 balls whereas Shreays got out after scoring 105 off 90 balls. It seemed that the Steve Smith-led side would make a strong comeback after the dismissals of Gill and Iyer but that wasn’t meant to be.
Stand-in skipper KL Rahul scored a solid fifty (52 off 38 balls) including three fours and three sixes. But the real sense of aggression came from Suryakumar Yadav. Suryakumar scored a quick-fire fifty (72* off 37 balls) and broke the back of Australia’s hapless attack. He surpassed Virat Kohli to score the fastest fifty versus Australia in ODIs by an Indian batter.
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