Cricket

'Humare stars is chapri Pandya ke under khelenge' - Fans unimpressed as Rohit Sharma 'takes leave' for first ODI against Australia

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Daniel S
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Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya

Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya (Image Credit: Twitter)

India skipper Rohit Sharma has been rested for the first of the three-match ODI series against Australia. The series will be followed by the ongoing Border-Gavaskar series. The home team has taken an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the four-match series. Meanwhile, Sharma is said to be missing the first ODI for 'family commitments'. In his place, Hardik Pandya, who was recently elevated as vice-captain in ODIs, will lead the team.

ODI Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), S Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (VC), R Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, W Sundar, Y Chahal, Mohd Shami, Mohd Siraj, Umran Malik, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Jaydev Unadkat

Meanwhile, the fans aren't happy with the development. They feel that Pandya isn't fit to lead the team yet citing his poor behavior with the players that were caught on stump mic (referring to him verbally abusing a teammate during an ODI against Sri Lanka).

This is how Twitter reacted

It was a fantastic win for us: Rohit Sharma

Meanwhile, India beat Australia by six wickets in the second Test played in Delhi. After batting first, the Aussies reached 263 all-out on Day One. During Day Two, India was reduced to 139/7. However, the likes of Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin helped the team reach 262 all-out. With a lead of one run, the Pat Cummins-led side needed to get a big score. However, after being 63/1 at the start of Day 3, they were reduced to 113 all-out.

With this, the Rohit Sharma-led side needed to chase 115 runs to win. They did it after losing four wickets.

After the game, Sharma said "I mean fantastic result for us, looking at how things were yesterday. How we came back and finished the job was a great effort from the bowlers. Even though the deficit was just one run, I felt we were very much behind; we had to bat last. I mean on a pitch like that, you have to come out and try to do different things. We knew they were going to come and play shots. For us, it was about not panicking and we had to hit that areas rather than panicking. I've seen them bowl enough and take wickets on these kind of conditions. We had discussed some things in the morning that we had to do, and that worked for us.

"Look, every game you play here there is some moisture and what I notice in three days is it has a lot to offer in the first session. Then the pitch gets slower and slower and there is not enough bite in the pitch - it's something we focussed on. I had a good chat with the bowlers and they are masters of these conditions. It was important for us to stay calm and let the mistakes happen. When you play Test cricket, there are a lot of moments, but I thought the partnership between Virat and Jadeja and Axar and Ash... to get that hundred partnership was never going to be easy. Even then, we knew we had to bowl well and restrict them to as low as possible.

India vs Australia 2023 rohit sharma India vs Australia Hardik Pandya