Foreign

Australia seals 2-1 series win over India, Suryakumar Yadav records ignominious feat

Published

2 months ago

March 23, 2023

NNN

Yadav’s poor performance

Australia have salvaged a consolation prize from their tour of India, wrapping up a 2-1 victory in the ODI series thanks to a 21-run victory in Chennai. One man who will be happy to see the backs of the Australians is Suryakumar Yadav, whose dismissal at the hands of Ashton Agar marked an ignominious feat for the 32-year-old batsman.

India triumphed in the Test series before the ODIs began – and the one-dayers got off to a poor start for Yadav with a golden duck in the first match courtesy of a Mitch Starc lbw. It was deja vu in game two for Yadav, again sent packing on his first delivery thanks to Starc trapping him in front. In the third and final match, Yadav was again out for a golden duck – but this time after Agar clean bowled him, with the wicket coming at a crucial moment for Australia.

It was a brutal return with the bat for Yadav, who had failed to fire in his Test debut in Nagpur, scoring only eight runs in India’s first innings. He didn’t get another opportunity at the crease in that match after Australia collapsed in their second innings to lose the Test within three days. Boasting the unfortunate record of being the first Indian batsman to register three golden ducks in a row in ODI cricket however, is unlikely to boost Yadav’s stock. The last player in International cricket to record the misfortune was Zimbabwe’s Blessing Muzarabani in 2021.

The last Australian player to record three-consecutive golden ducks was Shane Watson, back in 2009. He’s not the only Australian player on the list though, with Brett Lee and Andrew Symonds also making an appearance.

Australia’s victory

India lost their last eight wickets for 101 runs, as well as 6-79 in a devastating period. Zampa was named man of the match after claiming the wickets of Shubman Gill (37), KL Rahul (32), Pandya (40) and Ravindra Jadeja (18) as the Aussies won by 21 runs and secured a 2-1 series victory. In doing so they leapfrogged India and re-claimed the World No.1 ranking in ODIs.

“It’s always fun bowling with Zamps,” Agar said after the match. “We’re great mates. We have a pretty good time out there. We usually have a whisky in his room most nights and discuss how we’re going to go about it. It paid off for us today.” Kohli appeared poised to guide India to victory, but his soft dismissal to Agar’s bowling proved to be a critical moment of the match.

Agar clean-bowled Yadav on the very next delivery, while Rahul, Pandya and Jadeja were all dismissed playing expansive shots. “Ashton Agar, he changed the game,” Zampa said afterwards. “I don’t feel like I deserve this (man of the match) to be honest with you. For me to be able to do what I did at the end, it’s kudos to the guys who bowled before me.”

Indian captain Rohit Sharma said his batters failed to carry on after getting a start to “take the game deep”. He added: “All of us were trying our best to go out and achieve that but it just didn’t happen. Obviously a loss like this really hurts. But again we can understand what we need to do better as a team, as a group.”

Criticism from fans

Fans were highly critical of India’s batting display on social media. A number of soft dismissals came in for heavy scrutiny, with some labelling the hosts’ collapse ‘horrible’ and ‘awful’.

Credit: https://au.sports.yahoo.com/suryakumar-yadav-makes-embarrassing-cricket-history-in-india-loss-to-australia-223301776.html

ENND