Virat Kohli And Rohit Sharma. (Image Credit: X)
Rohit Sharma an Virat Kohli gave a dismal start to India’s campaign against Australia, with both dismissed cheaply in the series opener at the Optus Stadium. Rohit Sharma, who was relieved of the ODI captaincy ahead of the series, managed just 8 runs before being sent back to the pavilion while Kohli went out for a duck of eight deliveries.
Josh Hazlewood, exploiting the line outside off stump, induced an edge from Rohit, which flew straight to Matt Renshaw at third slip. Renshaw completed a straightforward catch in the fourth over of India’s innings.
Rohit had returned from a brief break after the Indian Premier League 2025, where he played his last competitive game for the Mumbai Indians. Ahead of the Australia tour, he shed 11 kilograms and trained rigorously under the guidance of Abhishek Nayar to regain peak fitness.
Virat Kohli, coming back from retirement in T20Is and Tests, failed to make an impact as well. Facing 8 balls, he was dismissed by Mitchell Starc in the seventh over without troubling the scorers.
Starc lured Kohli into a drive, producing a thick edge that was safely taken by Cooper Connolly, who dived to his left to complete the catch. This marked Kohli’s first duck in a fifty-over match in Australia.
Earlier, Australia’s stand-in captain Mitchell Marsh won the toss and opted to field first, putting India into bat under challenging conditions.
Australia Squad: Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh (captain), Matt Short, Josh Philippe, Matt Renshaw, Mitch Owen, Cooper Connolly, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Ellis, Matt Kuhnemann, Josh Hazlewood
India Squad: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill (captain), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Nitish Reddy, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
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