Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma failed to provide a good start yet again as India lost the third ODI against Australia by 32 runs in Ranchi on Friday. The opening batsmen managed a stand of just 11 runs before Dhawan was dismissed by Jhye Richardson for one run. The Delhi batsman has scored a meagre 42 runs in his last five ODI innings.

In the series so far, Dhawan has aggregated just 22 runs at an average of 7.33 which is his lowest average in a series with minimum 3 innings batted. Amongst the lowest five we can see three of them have come in the recently concluded ones.

Rohit Sharma, who was out for 14 runs in the third ODI, hasn’t scored a half-century in his last five ODI innings. With the score, the Mumbai batsman has recorded an average of 14.33 at the JSCA stadium in Ranchi. He has notched scores of 9* (vs Aus 2013), 9 (vs SL 2014), 11 (vs NZ 2016) and 14 (vs Aus 2019) at the ground.

The opening pair hasn’t notched a fifty-plus stand in the last six ODIs against Australia.

India captain Virat Kohli on Friday said his team will look to address its recent batting collapse and come back stronger in the remainder of the five-match series.

India’s chase got off to a disastrous start as they lost their first three wickets with the scoreboard reading just 27 and Kohli hinted at trying out new players in the remaining two games of the series.

“We don’t want to see anymore collapses. We want partnerships that can get us going. Yeah we will have a few changes in the next couple of games. A little hiccup in the middle, but we will regroup and come back strongly,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

First Published: Mar 09, 2019 10:51 IST