Glenn Maxwell is a match-winner, but he has lacked consistency: David Saker

David Saker, the stand-in Australian coach has justified the decision to drop Glenn Maxwell from the ODI side in the fourth match against India. He was replaced by the regular wicketkeeper Matthew Wade in Bengaluru on Thursday. The visitors put a halt to India’s winning streak and won the match by 21 runs to stage a belated comeback in the series. They will now look to win the final game in Nagpur as well and finish the series on a high.

On a placid track at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Australia racked up 334/5 in their quota of 50 overs courtesy a brilliant opening stand of 231 between Aaron Finch and David Warner. The latter also brought up his maiden ODI ton in India and scored 124. In reply, India started well but lost key wickets in quick succession and could only muster 313/8. Though, the half-centuries from Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma and Kedar Jadhav kept them in the hunt for the most part of their chase. India rested their frontline bowlers for the game and tested their bench strength by including Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Axar Patel in the team.

We want the players performing

Saker backed the decision of team management to exclude Maxwell terming him inconsistent but also insisted that Wade also needs to improve his numbers to be picked in the side. “We were looking for people to perform, and in his [Maxwell] last 20 games, he probably hasn’t done that for us. In his position, the way he plays, he’s a big match winner. But it’s been a while he’s done that for us, especially in any consistent form,” he said.

“We really wanted Wade to keep through the series but we made that change the game before but Mattsy [Wade] just has to get some numbers to justify getting picked,” Saker added.

Australia registered their first win away from home in the limited overs format in the last 12 completed games.