Australia lose their way after Aaron Finch's century to post 293/6 in Indore ODI

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  • Aaron Finch scored his second ODI century against India.

    Leading 2-0 in the five-match ODI series, hosts India were looking to take an unassailable lead while Australia were targeting their first win when the two sides met at the Holkar stadium in Indore for the third match.

    Australian skipper Steve Smith won his first toss of the series and had no hesitation in opting to bat first on a pitch where the hosts had accumulated 418 runs in the last match played there.

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  • Smith welcomed back opener Aaron Finch into the side after he recovered from his calf-injury as he replaced Hilton Cartwright at the top. Peter Handscomb was also drafted into the playing eleven replacing wicketkeeper Matthew Wade.

    Virat Kohli’s India meanwhile retained the same playing eleven from his team’s win at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

    Finch showed no signs of scratchiness despite the injury lay-off as he combined with David Warner to post a solid opening stand of 70. The pair of them motored along nicely without being too extravagant on a flat pitch with hardly any assistance for the pacers.

    Warner was looking extremely good before a sharp off-cutter from India’s all-round hero Hardik Pandya took the top of his middle-stump to send the left-hander packing for 42 runs.

    Smith and Finch then took control of the innings as the two put on a marathon 154-run stand for the second wicket. The skipper was his customary self in the middle as he converted the ones into twos in a busy innings without too many risks.

    It was Finch who took on the role of the aggressor as he steadily grew into the game. The 30-year-old brought up his eighth ODI century and second against India as Australia took command of the game.

    The right-handed Victoria man had clobbered five sixes and 12 boundaries in a run-a-ball 124 before he was finally undone by Kolkata’s hat-trick hero Kuldeep Yadav.

    Finch connected beautifully to Yadav’s fuller-delivery as he tried to swipe the ball onto the leg-side but ended up sending the ball straight towards deep midwicket where Kedar Jhadav completed a comfortable catch.

    Yadav, who had been expensive up to that point, struck again in his next over after Smith tried to launch a googly on off-stump out of the ground only to be caught by Jasprit Bumrah at long-off.

    Hard-hitting Glenn Maxwell failed to make an impact as he fell to leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal for the third-time in the series. Chahal slipped in a wider delivery upon seeing Maxwell advance down the track and MS Dhoni made no mistake in the stumping.

    Australia lost its way in the final part of the innings as dismissals of set batsmen pushed the scoring-rate down and what looked like a 350-plus score at one point ended up being some way short of even 300.

    Scorecard – Australia 293-6 (50 overs)

    Aaron Finch – 124(125)

    Steve Smith – 63(71)

    Jasprit Bumrah – 2-52 (10 overs)

    Kuldeep Yadav – 2-75 (10 overs)

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