Mitchell Marsh hit an unbeaten 46 off 52 balls while Virat Kohli was out for an eight-ball duck as Australia crushed India by seven wickets to spare in a rain-affected ODI series opener in Perth.<\/p>\n
Four rain delays totalling three hours and 40 minutes caused havoc as India stuttered to nine for 136 off a reduced 26 overs at Optus Stadium. Under the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, Australia required just 131 for victory from their 26 overs, with Marsh and Josh Philippe (37 runs off 29 balls) ensuring the hosts made light work of it.<\/p>\n
Marsh struck three sixes and two fours as Australia reached the victory target in 21.1 overs, winning with 29 balls to spare in front of 42,423 fans. Victory gives the host a 1-0 lead in the three-match series and snaps India\u2019s eight-match winning streak in one-day internationals.<\/p>\n
Travis Head and Matt Short both fell for eight as Australia slipped to two for 44 in their run chase, but Marsh and Philippe\u2019s 55-run partnership ensured there would be no major dramas. Debutant Matt Renshaw got in on the fun late on with an unbeaten 21 off 24 balls, including the winning single.<\/p>\n
Both captains wanted to bowl first under the overcast conditions, but it was Marsh who had the coin toss go his way. Rohit Sharma (eight) was the first to fall when he was caught at second slip off the bowling of Josh Hazlewood (2-20 off seven overs).<\/p>\n
Indian fans erupted when Kohli strolled out to the crease, but the veteran superstar lasted just eight balls before striking Mitchell Starc (1-22) to a diving Cooper Connolly at gully. It was in stark contrast to Kohli\u2019s last appearance in Perth 11 months ago, when he struck an unbeaten century in India\u2019s 295-run Test victory.<\/p>\n
Virat Kohli walks off after being dismissed for a duck by Mitchell Starc. Photograph: David Woodley\/EPA<\/p>\n
Alarm bells were ringing at three for 25 when Shubman Gill (10) was caught behind after tickling Nathan Ellis\u2019s first delivery down the leg side. A 12-minute rain break gave India a short respite, before players were forced off again \u2013 this time for more than two hours \u2013 with the score at three for 37.<\/p>\n
Shreyas Iyer struck Hazlewood for four upon the resumption, but he was out a short time later for just 11 when he gloved the Aussie paceman down the leg side for Philippe to take another diving catch, reducing India to four for 45.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Handy runs from KL Rahul (38 off 31 balls), Axar Patel (31 off 38) and debutant Nitish Reddy (19 not out off 11) finally got the scoreboard ticking, but it wasn\u2019t nearly enough to set a competitive total. Renshaw took three catches, while fellow debutant Mitch Owen snared two wickets for 20.<\/p>\n Marsh cramped late in his innings, quipping to the umpire: \u201cIt\u2019s either cramp or I\u2019ve done both of my calves,\u201d but recovered to continue his fine recent batting form. Game two will be held in Adelaide on Thursday, with the third and final ODI in Sydney on Saturday, followed by a five-match T20 series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitchell Marsh hit an unbeaten 46 off 52 balls while Virat Kohli was out for an eight-ball duck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-225149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}