05:21

It got pretty close in the end thanks to that late work from Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who did what most other batsmen couldn’t do and found runs at a decent clip.

India shouldn’t have got anywhere near it after losing three wickets with four runs on the board. Dhawan, Kohli and Rayudu all fell, and Rayudu used India’s only review despite being plumb. That meant Dhoni couldn’t use it when he shouldn’t have been given out. He put on 137 with Rohit, and I can see that some Indian fans are already bagging him for batting too slowly, but if he’d got out there would have been no chance.

After that, Rohit couldn’t get anyone to support him briskly enough late in the innings to keep the required rate in check. The dilemma of early wickets. But he went on to a quite brilliant hundred himself.

He likes playing Australia. These are his last few ODI innings against the team in gold.



141*, 11, 9*, 79, 209, 138, 34, 171*, 124, 6, 41, 99, 28, 7, 71, 65, 125, 133.

But no win tonight. Australia will be delighted, after a win rate of 17%, I think it was, since the Champions Trophy in 2017.

Richardson (4-26) and Behrendorff (2-39) were exceptional with the ball, and Lyon (0-50) exercised control in the face of withering attack.

There were some decent numbers for Australia’s batsmen: Khawaja 59, Marsh 54, Handscomb 73, Stoinis 47 not out. But they could have gone a fair bit bigger on a good batting surface, and will need to find a way to push that rate if they’re to compete in the World Cup. The balance of the order especially doesn’t look right. Will be interesting to see if they keep playing around through this series.

We’ll be back with you on Tuesday for the second match from Adelaide. Until then, from Geoff and also Adam Collins, goodnight.

