Internet Desk: Virat Kohli and his team will be aiming to end the five match ODI series on a high as they take on Australia in the fifth and final One Day International at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur. Not as easy it may sound after Steve Smith and his men prevailed over the hosts in the last ODI at Bengaluru. The Australians not only stopped India’s unbeaten streak of 9 ODI’s, but also whipped off the voodoo of not being able to win in the sub-continent on the last 11 occasions.
It would be interesting to note whether the Indian team management revert back to their winning team. In form Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah were all rested for the fourth ODI. Their replacements, Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav and Axar Patel, proved expensive in their first game of the series but it was not entirely their fault that India ended up on the losing side.
Virat Kohli defended the bowling performance that allowed Australia to post 334 for five but said the batsmen could have done better on a batting beauty.
On the batting front, whether KL Rahul will get a game or not will be interesting. The Karnataka batsman is the only cricketer to play in this series. With Manish Pandey not being consistent enough, team management may be influenced to get Rahul in place of Pandey.
Indian openers Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane have been in red hot form with both of them stitching a second straight century partnership of the series. But the middle order failed to capitalise on the start given by the openers.
Hardik Pandya being promoted to four in the batting order worked brilliantly in Indore but did not yield a similar return on Thursday.
Pandya’s promotion led to MS Dhoni being dropped to number six and the former captain hardly got time to get his eye-in before going ballistic, something he prefers doing nowadays with his big hitting power on the wane.
Coming to bat ahead of Dhoni, Pandya and Kedar Jadhav got enough time to close out the game but they were unable to do the finishing job.
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Australia on the other hand will be confident after their win in Bengaluru. It was a much-needed all-round performance that saw bowlers complementing the good work done by the batsmen. The pace trio of Pat Cummins, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Kane Richardson bowled with pace and precision in the death overs to take the game away from the Indians.
The batting looks a lot more potent ever since the return of Aaron Finch. The burly opener has scores of 94 and 124 under his belt in his last two innings. His opener partner David Warner too had a memorable game as he rose to the occasion to smash 124 in his 100th ODI at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
It is tipped to be another evenly contested game with both sides looking to end the series on a high.