There is an expectation that the ODI World Cup in India later this year will be dominated by flat pitches that offer little to the bowlers. so be it, but Opening match between Australia and India suggested that this should not be the case – or that at least there may be variations on offer.
The tour of Australia has featured a wide range of Indian surfaces across two different formats. tough but not invincible pitches Nagpur And DelhiOriginal Bunsen Inn Indorea handsome man Ahmedabad And now a one-day ground in Mumbai that has encouraged fast bowlers in terms of both good pace, good grip and some seam movement to go with the swing.
When Mitchell Marsh was scoring 81 off 65 balls, it didn’t seem like it at all, but his departure saw the fall of 8 wickets for 59 runs. A deep batting order didn’t help on this occasion. Then the early stages of India’s chase suggested that the slide might not have been as self-inflicted as it first appeared when they slumped to 39 for 4. This meant that 12 wickets had fallen for 98.
“To an extent I think we might have got carried away with looking at Mitch’s bat and how well he hit them, then thinking that the score might have been overstated,” Marcus Stoinis Said. “The wicket had a bit of wobble, we need to be a bit better with our techniques and figure out how we are going to play it. We were expecting it to swing a bit but a bit less than the actual pitch. But We are good enough to adapt to it.”
The main protagonists in those two phases of the play were Mohammed Shami And Mitchell Starc, Both showed excellent seam and swing bowling.
Shami’s second spell of 3-2-8-3 was a classy display of his craft. Josh Inglis survived a review on the next delivery only for an inside edged catch on his stumps. Then Shami really got to work.
At the start of his next over he beat Cameron Green in successive deliveries, then produced a beauty in the third over that went straight enough to beat the outside edge and clear the stumps. Shami should have had one more next ball when Stoinis pushed with tight hands and gave a slip which was rounded off by Shubman Gill.
However, the displeasure of both did not last long. In Shami’s next over, Stoinis repeated his effort and Gill swallowed the chance (Gill would then make an even better effort to remove Sean Abbott) Mohd Siraj,
Remarkably, Australia did not score in the last 24 balls bowled by Shami and Siraj, during which the pace duo shared five wickets. Adam Zampa was thrashed by four consecutive balls from Siraj before finally backing down.
“match [at Wankhede] “Most are high scoring,” said Shami. “There’s good bounce, the ball comes on to the bat well. Momentum shifts depending on the length you bowl and how early or late you adjust and find the length. Over 20 overs The momentum we got later, where we found our length, helped us restrict them to 188. But, yes, we didn’t expect them to get that low.”
But if there is pace on offer with the white ball, Starc will more than likely find it too. Stoinis was a somewhat surprising choice to share the opening duties, although he later said he knew he would be doing it a few days back. On commentary, former skipper Aaron Finch spoke about how he made the ball swing more than Sean Abbott. His sixth ball, Stoinis swung it into the pads of Ishan Kishan and got him out lbw.
Then it was Stark’s show. Two balls into his second over, he saw an opportunity missed when Gill bowled a superb delivery that skidded away from the pitch, only for Inglis to get it down as he dived in front of first slip.
His third over was one for his collection of classics. He got an inside edge from Virat Kohli, then beat him with swing to bring up a hard-hitting LBW appeal. The next ball was 145 kmph and went across the edge. Then the reward: a full inswinger that thundered down into Kohli’s pads and was so outside off that he turned on his heel to walk as he lifted his finger.
Stark didn’t end there. Suryakumar Yadav, who is having a tough time cracking down in ODIs, was beaten by a good length ball that shaped the back and clipped over mid on.
The hat-trick delivery was too full at the start of Starc’s next over, happily walked away KL Rahul, But Stark responded again. Delivered in the sixth over by Steven Smith, he drew Gill, who was living a charmed life, in a drive which he could not keep down through point. Starc was withdrawn after a spell of 6-0-24-3.
At that point, Australia were feeling like the favorites but India’s middle order righted the ship. Stoinis slid in a fine bouncer to remove Hardik Pandya, but Starc could not get the second breakthrough. Abbott was unlucky to finish wicketless while Green struggled a bit for consistency. Another frontline fast bowler could have come in handy.
Ultimately, a game that was dominated by Marsh’s runs in the early stages ended with an unbroken century partnership by Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja, a comfortable margin for India in the end. Yet there was nothing quite as comfortable as having a bat in hand in the midst of that time.