India v Australia Second ODI Report Card

Featuring jazz standards, chaotic running, comedy rust and half-speed podcasts

Jazz Standards
Grade: D-

Right. Let’s try this again, shall we? After the successful warming up of Australia in the first ODI, it was time to flip them over and warm up the other side in the second, the whole enterprise very much like toasting a piece of bread on a skillet.

And speaking of toast, look who Australia axed from their team for this second match. Yep, silly old Player of the Match, Phoebe Litchfield. Let that be a valuable lesson to her to knuckle down and go on to three figures next time she gets a start. Also out of the team? The similarly century-less Kim Garth.

Replacing the pair were Georgia Voll and Darcie Brown. Were Australia attempting to just give everybody in the squad an opportunity to show off their talents leading into the World Cup? Perhaps. But we must also consider the possibility that Alyssa Healy - a known lover of jazz standards - simply wanted to reply to the question at the toss about who was coming into the team with a casual ’Sweet! Georgia, Brown.’

Chaotic Running
Grade: B

Of course, another change from the first ODI was that Australia had shown their hand in that initial match. By foolishly winning so comfortably, they’d allowed the India openers to understand exactly how ridiculously swiftly they needed to score in this second match.

So they did, the very in-form Smriti Mandhana racing her way to a century at better than a run-a-ball, dragging along some of her more sluggish partners in the process. And, heck, if she had to run a few of them out in the process, she’d do that too. That, after all, was the only thing that had stopped her in the first match, and turnabout is fair play.

Still, good of India to persevere with the chaotic running between the wickets, in addition to the rapid run-scoring. Less interesting sides would get rid of their amusing weaknesses as they looked to improve. Not Team India. Good stuff.

Australia, for their part, were looking to add amusing weaknesses to their game. What did they go for? Playing Alana King as a specialist batter. So that’s pretty good, too.