New Delhi: Riding on Hardik Pandya's brilliant all-round performance at M Chidambaram Stadium, Team India outclassed the 'underdogs'-tagged Australian side with a 26-run victory by Duckworth-Lewis method in a rain-intervened encounter in Chennai for the first of the five one-day international matches. With the spectacular win, Virat Kohli became the first captain ever to record a winning percentage of 80 in ODI cricket.
The home team was sure to have found themselves in a debacle, losing three early wikets well within the first powerplay after opting to fat first. Keeping the line well outside the off stump, Aussie pacer Nathan Coulter-Nile tempted the Indian batting line-up to play the cut. And the plan did pan out – jittery opener Ajinkya Rahane departed for mere four runs while skipper Kohli and Manish Pandey rode back on a duck. India were 11 for three in the sixth over of their innings.
Rohit Sharma and Kedar Jadhav did put in some effort to breathe life into their faltering innings, but all went in vain Marcus Stoinis double strike left India wounded with just 87 runs on the board. All-rounder Hardik Pandya spun a whirlwind of boundaries and sixes to put up a blistering 66-ball 83 and also stitched a gritty 118-run stand alongside Mahendra Singh Dhoni to bolster the hosts to 205 runs before getting outfoxed by Adam Zampa. Dhoni then rampaged through to notch up his 66tth ODI fifty and also laced a 72-run partnership with Bhuvneshwar Kumar to lift India's total to 281 runs.
Heavy showers intervened and thereby reduced the target to 164 runs which the Aussies had to breach in 21 overs. And easy win it did seem for the Aussies, but things just completely overturned and left the visitors stuttering at 35 for four at the end of 10 overs. Debutant Hilton Cartwright failed to shine, while Steve Smith recorded his lowest against India while David Warner once again failed to read Kuldeep Yadav.
With wickets coming at regular intervals, it almost seemed like the Aussies were in no mood to even try things out in Chennai. At the end of 21 overs, the team from Down Under amassed 137 runs at the loss of nine wickets and ergo lost in the rain-truncated first ODI by 26 runs owing to DLS method, their first defeat at Chepauk.
With the victory, India skipper Virat Kohli became the first captain ever to record a winning percentage of 80 in ODIs. Leading his side to 36 matches, the Men in Blue bagged 28 victories and lost just seven matches.
Adding to it, this was also Kohli's 50th international win as a captain and ergo equalled Rahul Dravid's tally. The former had 50 international wins from 104 matches as a captain. The 28-year-old, thus became the fifth Indian skipper to breach the mark, after Dhoni (178 of 331), Mohammad Azharuddin (104 of 221) and Sourav Ganguly (97 of 195). But, to his praise, Kohli now stands behind Aussie great Ricky Ponting in the list of fastest to 50 international wins as captain. The legend stands atop with victories coming from just 63 matches, while for Kohli ist is 70 matches. He is followed by former South African skipper Hansie Cronje who had reached the mark in 72 matches. Last, but not the least, the Delhi dasher eased past his predecessor Dhoni to register most number of consecutive wins for as an Indian captain combining all three formats of the game. Kohli leads the chart with 10 wins ( 9 against Sri Lanka in the recently concluded series and one against Australia in Chennai), one ahead of the 36-year-old.
Team India will next head to Eden Gardens, Kolkata for the second ODI encounter against Steve Smith-led Australia.
