Sports Desk
Chennai: India on Sunday inflicted a humiliating 6-wicket defeat on five-time champions Australia in their opening match of the ICC Men’s World Cup at Chennai’s M A Chidambaram Stadium. The hosts probably expected their chase to be a cakewalk after their spin-heavy attack bundled out the five-times champions for 199 with three deliveries left in the Australian innings.
India, however, made a shocking start to their reply with three of their top four batters falling for ducks – for the first time in an ODI – inside two overs.
Dropped on 12 by Mitchell Marsh off Josh Hazlewood, Kohli went on to make 85 as he masterminded yet another successful chase for India.
His collaborator in the 165-run fourth-wicket stand, KL Rahul, produced a chanceless knock of 97 not out as India reached the target in 41.2 overs.
Australia would be particularly unhappy with their batting as no one reached fifty in the low-scoring match though David Warner (41) and Steve Smith (46) got decent starts.
Teams
India: Rohit Sharma (capt), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
Australia: David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steve Smith,Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Pat Cummins (capt), Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood
