Australia 4 for 389 (Smith 104, Warner 83, Labuschagne 70, Maxwell 63*, Finch 60) beat India 9 for 338 (Kohli 89, Rahul 76, ) by 51 runs
During the innings break the host broadcaster crossed for a segment with cricket's one of a kind YouTube curator Rob Moody, in what is set to be a regular feature as he takes viewers through highlights both brilliant and amusing.
Moody's memory is near enough to photographic, but in years to come he will be forgiven for confusing elements of the second ODI between Australia and India at the SCG with the first fixture of the series two days before. On both occasions Steven Smith crashed a century from an identical number of balls, on both occasions Australia's batting functioned more or less as the captain Aaron Finch would want it to, and on both occasions India's chase faltered and then petered out after a modicum of a contest into the middle overs.
More worryingly for the Australians were parallel losses to injury, as David Warner followed Marcus Stoinis into the treatment room when he pulled up sharply with an apparent groin injury that has the potential to not just scupper his white ball duty but severely affect his Test summer as well. India's salient concerns were less to do with injury than quality of performance; twice now their bowling attack has been severely mauled, an experience shared only by Mitchell Starc on the Australian side.
A crowd of 17,573 was able to savour Australia's first bilateral ODI series win at home since 2016-17 against Pakistan.
There were a few differences: Marnus Labuschagne, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul each made their first substantial contributions of the tour, and Moises Henriques' return to international cricket for the first time since 2017 was punctuated by a batting cameo, some handy overs through the middle and a sublime catch at midwicket to account for Kohli. Given a decent platform and strong support from Labuschagne, Smith and Glenn Maxwell were arguably able to improve upon their efforts in the opener.
Kohli was left to shuffle his bowlers with something like resignation as they were again exposed on a good pitch by in-form Australian batting. Mohammed Shami was the closest to providing a genuine test for the hosts, but he and Jasprit Bumrah were still expensive. Navdeep Saini, meanwhile, has conceded 153 runs from 17 overs so far.
Full report to follow...