Oz tour of India, Feb 9 - March 22

[meninblue]

Starc takes 4th wicket.K L Rahul out for 9. India 48/4.

[meninblue]

Will be interesting to see how Hardik fsces new ball.

[meninblue]

5 down as Sean strikes.

Brilliant diving catch by Smith in slips.

[meninblue]

7 down. India 92/7.

India struggling to post even a decent T20i score.

[meninblue]

Starc has been brilliant. He is one of those rare pacers who still bowls close to 140 consistenly or more after playing for so long. Most others who have played as much as him and had multiple injuries have drastically reduced their speed.

At 33 he is still faster than Pat Cummins and Josh Hazelwood. Jhye Richardson is on that speed range i guess but he hasnt played as much.

[andy]

Oz should cruise this

[Durhamfootman]

ouch!

that's a hammering

[mikesiva]

Australia win the ODI series 2-1.

[alfie]

Strong performance by Australia to win this series quite comprehensively. Have a feeling India were messing about a bit with their selections ; but then again they don't seem too sure of their best XI in any format at the moment , as they seek to perform a bit of generation change without making too many drastic changes at once. They are missing a couple of key players with injuries too , so perhaps we can't read too much into these results ?

[GarlicJam]

One thing that I think we can read into it, Alfie, is that Aus look to have gotten over the mindcloud that affected them in the first couple of tests - they seemed very intimidated by the idea of playing India in India, with all the Indian crowds and the Indian media.

That, and luck starting working with them rather than against them seems to have helped.

[alfie]

Yes there is no question that Australia seemed to get a much more positive attitude - which paradoxically developed just as they lost their captain and looked to be heading for a total disaster in the Tests ! Certainly speaks to their resilience ; and flowed through to the ODIs.

[Durhamfootman]

Certainly speaks to their resilience

does it also speak to their captaincy?

[sussexpob]

Certainly speaks to their resilience

does it also speak to their captaincy?

It does make me chuckle that, for all of the white noise outrage Aussies banged on about when Smith et al got caught cheating, a couple of years down the line and he's back as captain. All that deep soul searching, all that self-affirmation about changing a toxic culture.... all leading back to square one. I expected some outrage to see Smith back as captain, but have not seen as much as a murmur about it. I guess from that we can gauge how real all that reaction was....

Of course, I have no problem about Smith coming back as captain, and said at the time as much. They paid a heavy price for what they did, and everyone deserves redemption - but it does somewhat make the board look idiotic after preaching so much about changes and blah blah, to then have him back, even temporarily.

Maybe its different in the context of this series. A last minute captain change, Australia 2-0 and being thrashed. Turn to the guy best equipped to hold it together? I wonder if there would be any push back if Smith was touted as the permanent leader? I would guess not...

[Durhamfootman]

I guess not either

[GarlicJam]

you are not seeing a lot then, Sussex.

I'd guess you can divide the Aus cricket fans into three groups on this. Those that are firmly of the opinion that Smith should not be captain again (and for some, this extends to even playing for Aus), those who are firmly of the opinion that he has paid the price and all is fine, and those who were originally in group A but have swayed and now are in group B.

The thing is, according to what we know of the events, Smith did not do any cheating or ball tampering. But he allowed it to happen under his captaincy - and for me, that was such a weakness in character/decision making, that he should not be captain again, therefore not vice-captain either.

Maybe he IS the best person for the role, but I think CA should have just put a line through his name as far as leadership went, and named another vc.