IND vs AUS | No excuse for India's poor fielding, hopefully it was one-off, opines Aakash Chopra 

Indian fielding is generally top-notch but that was certainly not the case in the first ODI against Australia at SCG as the Men in Blue were quite sluggish in the field. There were misjudgments in running for catches, few chances dropped, and a run-out opportunity missed too. There were at least, four chances which can be put down as drops by Indian fielders and as a result, Australian batsmen went bonkers to pile up a mammoth 374 on board with the help of Aaron Finch and Steven Smith centuries and a brilliant cameo by Glenn Maxwell at the end, which was too much for the tourists as they lost the game by 66 runs.

Former Indian cricketer turned analyst Aakash Chopra feels that Indian fielding isn't as bad as it looked in the ODI series opener but there can be no excuse for such a poor display.

"Hopefully, it was an aberration and one-off as Indian fielding isn't that bad as it was in the first game. If you have a flat pitch and there are just five bowlers, fielding acts as an addition bowler but that was not the case as fielding couldn't lift the team. And there's no excuse for such poor fielding as they have played enough cricket in lead up to the game and there is nothing like playing excessively as well. In few of the UAE grounds, dropped catches were still understandable but not here," Chopra said in a video uploaded by Cricbuzz.   

Ashish Nehra also weighed in and stated that you can't give chances to big players and India had a bad day overall in the first game of the long tour. 

"Big players like Steven Smith make full use of dropped chances. On a flat pitch, Australia's running between the wickets was excellent and as the match progressed, the pressure kept piling on India. They had fielded decently in the first half diving well but then they lost the plot and even someone like Ravindra Jadeja missed a run-out chance, there were no-balls too, so it was a bad day overall for India."

India will now take on Australia in a do-or-die game on November 29 at SCG after the hosts gained a lead of 1-0 in the three-match ODI series.