Australia shows its class, defeated India by 84 runs in second ODI

Oct 03: The Australian cricket team showed its class by comprehensively beating India by a huge margin of 84 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the second One–day international, of the seven match series of the Future cup, played at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Kochi on Tuesday.

Having saved by the rains in the series opener on Saturday, Men in blue could not be able to push their luck further as the mighty Aussies duly stamped their authority, over the 50-50 version of the game, literally in all the departments of the game.

Putting in to bat, Australians had a shaky start as the lost their 2 wickets at the score of 8 but later Symonds and Matthew Hayden recovered their team before Haddin provided the finishing touches with a valuable 87.

A 108-run partnership between Andrew Symonds and Brad Haddin propped Australia to an imposing 306 for six helping them to score an easy win. For India, Sourav Ganguly ruled out due to hamstring injury and Robin Uthappa came in his place. RP Singh faced the music of bowling badly in the first ODI and was kept out while for Australia captain Ricky Ponting is still recovering from his injury.

The match had a half an hour delayed start due to wet patches on the wicket caused by rain for the past three days, still the Dhoni’s men could not be able to find much assistance from the pitch. On the other hand, the kangaroos had a blessing in disguise by losing the toss, because the pitch got better and easy to bat, as the sun progresses and dried the pitch and its surrounding area.

Adam Gilchrist once again fell early on duck after edging a Zaheer Khan ball straight to Sachin Tendulkar at first slip. Later Brad Hodge nicked Sreesanth and caught behind the stumps, seeing that the Kochi crowd went on boisterous as the local boy scalped his first wicket.

After losing initial wickets Matthew Hayden and Michael Clarke pushed hard to build up the innings and played sensibly instead of going for big shots. They both waited for the odd bad delivery for the bashing. Clarke hung around with Hayden for a time, but a brilliant bit of work in a flash from Dhoni behind the stumps showed him the door. Andrew Symonds joined Hayden out in the middle to add up misery for the Indians.

Symonds and Hayden added nearly 100-run for the fourth wicket before Pathan’s yorker knocked out Hayden's leg stump. Brad Haddin didn’t get much chance to play, as the first choice for the wicket-keeper batsman for the Aussies is always Gilchrist, but on Tuesday he availed the opportunity with both hands.

Symonds and Haddin put 108 for the fifth wicket before Sreesanth separated them. Symonds foxed by a Sreesanth’s slower one and hit the ball higher rather than longer, and was caught and bowled on 87.

Haddin batted till the end for an unbeaten 87 and sealed the fate of the match. Haddin's quickfire 87 came in just 69 balls as Australia ended on 306 for 6.

Chasing a mammoth total India needed a rollicking start. But, apart from a daring and gusty batting display from Robin Uthappa at No. 3, there was little resistance from the top-order as India lost half of their line-up with only 136 on the board.

Stuart Clark took the crucial wicket of Sachin Tendulkar and sent the dangerous looking Robin Uthappa. For India Gautam Gambhir got out first, bowled superbly by Mitchell Johnson Tendulkar drove uppishly and was caught sharply by Symonds at short point. Yuvraj Singh heaved one six off a free hit but fell soon in the similar manner to Tendulkar. Uthappa was going great guns as if he was playing at20 match and had raced to 41 off only 30 balls but got trapped in front by Stuart Clark.

Then skipper MS Dhoni and Rahul Dravid kept India in the race but their hopes came to an end, when Johnson brilliantly caught Dravid on the ropes. The game was about to conclude and Dhoni was losing out the partners on the other end.

Pathan ran himself out soon, Harbhajan was stumped while going for a big heave and a quick one from Clarke cleaned up Powar. Brad Hogg picked up three easy wickets even as Dhoni determinedly denied the Aussies his wicket and completed his half-century, but there was no change in the result at the end as India were convincingly outplayed by the Australians.