In the times of pandemic crisis if there's one series which has been the audience waiting for it would definitely be India and Australia series. After the long break cricket has resumed when the major international series from India and Australia; West Indies and New Zealand; South Africa and England; have been started. But all of them have been wrapped before the final game of the series. India has lost the previous series to New Zealand earlier this year but against Australia they were favourites in the presence of Virat Kohli to easily win the white-ball series.
Playing against Australia in their own territory is not an easy task for any visiting team who have been to Australia in the past. But India has come here without the experienced players over the youngsters in the team and even before the series started the major players have been pulled out of the tour. Without having any strong depth in the batting or any experienced bowler in the line-up along with quality spinners everything have gone against India from the first game. “Talent wins matches, teamwork wins tournaments”. It's quite shocking to see that India has no strong back-ups of the players for such a long tour. With two more series to come T-20l and Test cricket series and hope team India will come with some strong strategy to play the better brand of cricket against Australia. Virat Kohli will be captain of T-20l series and will be the part of first test match at Adelaide only.
Having said, let us take at three reason why team India has lost the ODI series against Australia.
IN-EXPERIENCE TEAM INDIA BOWLING LINE-UP:
A team can't win without a strong bowling line-up against Australia especially at their fast pitches. In the 3 games of ODI series there was hardly a bowler who could've troubled the batsman of Australia either with pace or spin. With the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Navdeep Saini everyone was clueless.
If the frontline bowlers were in effective team can't expect the part timers to win games against the most strong batting line-up of Australia. Even there was a quality spinner like Ashwin or Harbhajan Singh to be effective against Australia.
ABSURD MIDDLE ORDER OF TEAM INDIA:
Without Rohit Sharma it was already a big blow for team India before the series started but the situation got more difficult when the regular batsmen failed to score runs. From Virat Kohli to Shikhar Dhawan, everyone have flopped to took the bail of team in crisis situation. Indian batting has been revolve around Virat Kohli if he scores the winning ratio is high.
Throughout the ODI series Virat Kohli is nowhere near the kind of standard he has set for him as a batsman or captain. With many former players like Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan and Michael Vaughan have already criticised the captaincy of Virat Kohli. In the first two games team India was playing without Shubham Gill, Sanju Samson and Manish Pandey was the another reason they have lost the series in the two games.
NO QUALITY ALL-ROUNDER IN TEAM:
Another reason India has lost the series without having any genuine all rounder like Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh to provide any depth in the batting and bowling (to bowl handy 4-5 overs in the middle). Hardik Pandya is already injured, not able to bowl with left only Jadeja, the result was obvious it will be tough times for team India.
With the T-20l series starting from 4 December it is expected that team India will bounce back and play competitive cricket to make this rivalry more intense.
