Australia v India Third ODI Report Card

Featuring liking David Warner, being six beers deep, shadows and Virat Kohli's century

Liking David Warner
Grade: B

Inexplicably, I found myself at the SCG for this third ODI, surrounded by a sea of fans in India colours. A Kuldeep blue sea, if you will. (But you probably won’t, unless you’re a fan of left arm wrist spinning sharks. How do sharks bowl any kind of wrist spin - or even finger spin - when they don’t have any arms? Well, did I mention they’re superintelligent left arm wrist spinning sharks?)

It’d been quite some time since I’d been to the SCG, and I took particular delight in the photograph that adorned the elevators on the way up - a scene from a previous summer’s match where the advertising message scattered all around the stands consisted of two words: ‘Like Warner’. Had this been a fun piece of player-spectator interactivity for the local crowds that I’d missed while I was watching from afar by TV? A personal relationship challenge set by the SCG Trust? A mandate laid down by Cricket Australia for Sydney-based fans? Alas, no answers were forthcoming.

(furiously) We said like him

Being Six Beers Deep
Grade: B+

Because before I could investigate further, it was time for the match, as the overly excited ground announcer made clear by shout-counting down - ‘10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!!’ Perhaps slightly anticlimactically, the final enthusiastic digit was followed by the bowler, Mohammed Siraj, waving his arm, still adjusting the field. Then eventually aborting his run up. Proper bowling. Siraj, a hero.

Eventually, Siraj competed a delivery, and Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head got Australia off to yet another rapid start. Marsh has recently said that he expects to be ‘six beers deep’ by lunch on day one of the first Ashes Test. Impossible to tell how many beers deep he was by the first drinks break of this ODI, but he was dismissed first ball afterwards, so draw your own conclusions.

Wickets fell at, first, a steady, then later, a rapidly accelerating pace, until suddenly it was left to poor old 22-year-old Cooper Connolly to once again hang around with the tail to coolly guide Australia to a decent total. Luckily, ‘coolly’ is his middle name. Or, to be more accurate, it’s the exact opposite of his middle name: ie, the very extremities of his name.

It was perhaps this confusion about middles and extremities of his god-given handles that undermined Connolly. He became the penultimate wicket to fall, as Australia were bowled out for a subpar 236.

Still, good stuff from the Australian men to once again try to get their match finished before the women’s World Cup ODI starts. Priorities.

Shadows
Grade: A

But what about Virat Kohli, you’re probably asking, if you have a soul in your head, or a brain in your heart. After all, this was almost certainly going to be his last match on Australian soil. (Or, in Australia, at least. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the nation’s soil export industry.)

I’m pleased to report that Kohli could be seen in the field during Australia’s innings, furiously shadow-batting. More importantly, after his twin ducks in the first two ODIs, the shadow-batting had yet to result in his dismissal. Good signs for the great man.

Having said that, I’d love to see more shadow-batters getting out. Let’s be realistic about it. Sometimes the shadow-bowler is just too good. No shadow-shame in that.

Having shadow-warmed up, and with Australia barely breaking 200, this felt like the perfect kind of target for the India team to carefully manipulate during the chase to ensure a Kohli century.

But that’d be too much to hope for, right?

Virat Kohli’s Century
Grade: A-