Another day, Same problems: Why India lost the second ODI against Australia

Batting woes

India batted first and scored 308/8 on the back of yet another ton from Rohit Sharma only to run into the same set of problems. Twenty or thirty more runs to the target would have made it a really close match, and the Men in Blue could have ended upon the winning side with some luck.

India’s scoring rate in the middle overs and last ten overs were one of the problems of their defeat at WACA. The away side followed a similar scoring rate at Gabba only to lose wickets in a heap to end upon the wrong end of the scoreline. On the other hand, Australia started their innings slowly and utilized the middle overs to heap misery on the Indian spinners and strolled to a victory by going at a run a ball in the last ten overs. If we analyze the data, then we can find that apart from the phase of overs 1-10, the Aussies maintained a better run rate than the Indians in all other phases of the match.

At 233/2 in 40 overs, India would have hoped for at least 100 runs in the last overs to put a daunting task in front of the Aussies. However, it went miserably wrong as India ended up losing eight wickets to huff and puff past 300.

Bowling & fielding worries

To add to the misery of ending 20 to 30 runs short in the innings, India gave Shaun Marsh four lives to let him make 71 off 84 balls to put Australia in a good spot to chase down the target. Ishant Sharma’s sitter at long leg, when Marsh was on 19 will be India’s biggest regret after going 2-0 down in the series. Rahane, Sran and Manish Pandey had difficult chances to send the same batsman back to the pavilion, but as the story turned out India failed to grasp the chances in their hands to lose the match by seven wickets.

The Indian bowlers' performance will be another reason for India’s defeat at the Gabba with none of the frontline bowlers producing a creditable performance. In fact the spinners – Ashwin and Jadeja – who India banked heavily on turned out once again conceding more than six per over to end India’s chances.

India kind of rectified their problem of playing dot balls, this time, around as they played 124 dot balls compared to 144 last time. With Australia playing 123 dot balls themselves, it did not prove to be the difference between the two sides at Gabba.

Dhoni will hope for a much better performance from his bowlers at the third ODI at Melbourne on January 17, Sunday. Rohit Sharma’s performance and the team’s ability to score three hundred runs consecutively will be India’s big positives as they head to Melbourne.