ODI: India beats Aussies

Mohammed Shami claimed career-best figures of 5-51 and India’s frontline batters gave a good account themselves to secure their five-wicket victory against Australia in the opening one-day international on Friday. Put into bat, Australia were all out for 276 in exactly 50 overs even though 300 looked within their reach before Shami polished off their tail. In reply, four of India’s top six batters smashed half-centuries as the home side led, who have rested several frontline players, romped home with eight balls to spare. Mohammed Shami, Player of the Match, said, (On bowling longer spells in the heat) It depends on the captain and the game situation, but despite the heat you feel like bowling 4-5 overs with the new ball. I enjoyed the wicket of Marsh, that’s a different feeling when you get the outside edge, when you control your swing nicely. It was important to hit the right lengths on this wicket, either at full pace or go slow, but bowling the right lengths were key. (On bowling with the other pacers) We’ve played together for a long time, so we know what needs to be done. Always enjoy when we bowl well in tandem like this. KL Rahul, said, (On captaincy) Not the first time, always happens with me. I’m used to it, I love it. I think the intensity in the afternoon was great, after Colombo this felt like heaven in the start but it was really hot and humid. It gets tough and physically challenging, but we’ve all worked on our fitness and that’s showing on the field. We only played five bowlers, so they had to bowl 10 overs. After Shubman got out, it was a bit tricky with the set batter out. But managed to build a good partnership with Surya, need to put myself in such challenging situations. (On partnership with Surya) We kept talking about hitting good cricket shots, rotating the strike and this is something all our batters are working on. We didn’t want to get bogged down, we were always on par so we wanted to