Smith leads from the front to down India

TV replays clearly showed that the batsman had gloved the ball, but with India’s apathy towards the DRS, Bailey escaped.

Bailey, who actually had a let-off from his first ball when a glove through to wicketkeeper Dhoni was not spotted, put in an impressive showing alongside his skipper as Australia showed no signs of letting up. However, India have had two warm-up matches to adapt to the conditions and all the batsmen have been among the runs.

En route his ninth ODI hundred, the stylish right-hander from Mumbai broke a plethora of records, including the one where he surpassed Sir Vivian Richards’ 153 which has been the highest individual score against Australia in an ODI Down Under for the last 37 years. “All over Australia you will find pitches that assist the fast bowlers, but the spinners also get a bit more bounce”. He, along with Smith, went on to rebuild the Aussie innings cautiously but keep the scorecard ticking.

Rohit looked good from the word go, and Dhawan ought to have played second fiddle but he didn’t seem comfortable at the crease. Bhuvneshwar Kumar (0-42) and Umesh Yadav (0-54) bowled well in their first spells but once Bailey-Smith got settled they were hitting the India bowlers all over the park. Rohit is just six runs away from half-century.

Smith compiled his best ODI score as he and Bailey shared the fourth-highest Australia stand in ODIs. The Mumbaikar was then joined by Kohli in the middle.

Kohli’s innings of 91 was laden with 9 boundaries and a six.

Sharma and Kohli were quite confident in their approach and brought up the 50-run stand in 63 balls.

The Indian side won the toss and chose to bat first as Barinder Sran made debut for the tourists whereas Joel Paris and Scott Boland were given One-Day International (ODI) cap. In reply, Smith, who faced 163 balls, added a staggering 242 runs for the third wicket with another former captain George Bailey (112) as the home team knocked off the runs with four balls to spare.

Virat Kohli was unfortunate to miss out another hundred.

With the dismissal kohli, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (18) scored a couple being out caught off the bowling of Faulkner.

“What makes life easy for an global team is the kind of domestic cricket (they have)… if you see the Australian first-class cricket, it is very good, which means the players who come up from the ranks of domestic cricket or first-class cricket have already got good exposure of playing cricketers who have played worldwide cricket or are playing worldwide cricket at that point of time”.