"Mistake in reading conditions resulted in back-to-back defeats"- Shikhar Dhawan after loss to Australia

Team India started off the five-match ODI series against Australia in Hyderabad with a win where they came back from behind thanks to Kedar Jadhav and MS Dhoni’s 141-run partnership. In the second game, Virat Kohli’s brilliance got them past the finishing line. However, things have not gone down well in the last two games in Ranchi and Mohali, where Australia came out triumphant.

Especially in the last game in Mohali, another Kohli brilliance led to India making 358/9 in 50 overs. Australia started off badly but came back in with Peter Handscomb making a century and Usman Khawaja making 91 crucial tuns. In the end, it was Ashton Turner who slammed a maiden fifty in ODIs and his whirlwind unbeaten innings took Australia past the finishing line.

Shikhar Dhawan finally comes good

Shikhar Dhawan was devoid of runs ever since his back-to-back half-centuries against New Zealand in the first two ODIs played there. Since then, he had failed to pass the 50-run mark repeatedly and it continued against Australia as well, in the first three matches, where he had scored of 0, 21 and 1 respectively.

But finally, in the Mohali ODI, the old Shikhar Dhawan was back and along with Rohit Sharma, who made 95, added 193 runs for the opening stand. It put India on track for a score close to 400. Rohit fell in the process, but Dhawan went on to make 143 runs before Pat Cummins cleaned him up.

Dhawan admits Indian team erred in reading conditions two times

Shikhar Dhawan’s century was triumphed by a century from Peter Handscomb and an epic last over-onslaught by Ashton Turner. Dhawan later admitted that the Indian team failed to read the conditions in both Ranchi and Mohali. Virat Kohli, during the toss in Ranchi ODI, had expected dew to play a huge factor in the second innings under the lights. However, dew seemed to have missed and India’s decision to chase backfired.

Meanwhile, in Mohali, Kohli expected no dew in the second innings and hence chose to bat first, but there was heavy dew in the second innings and the Indian spinners were nullified in the process. “We had expected dew would be a factor in the last game and it didn’t come and here, we didn’t expect dew in this game and it came very heavily,” said Dhawan in the post-match press conference after the Mohali defeat.

Dhawan mentioned that dew usually plays an important factor in day-night games and they had expected batting second to be a difficult task in the absence of dew in Mohali. But with heavy dew falling in night, the Indian bowlers found gripping the ball difficult and Australian batsmen made merry and recorded the highest successful chase against the Men in Blue.

“So of course, when you put such totals on the board, it’s always pressures for the other sides and not our bowlers and we were quite in control till 38th over. But then ball started coming so nicely and the (bounce) true that you could play any shot on that surface,” he added.

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