India v Australia: Rain washes off fourth ODI play

Both captains claim rain denied them a decent chance to win the game.

RANCHI // The captains of India and Australia each said they are confident their teams can win the fourth one-day international after rain forced the game to be abandoned at Ranchi.

India started strongly at more than seven per over in their four overs chasing the visitors’ 295 for eight when it started raining, first lightly before intensifying and ultimately ruining the entire play.

“It depended on the first 15 overs. If we didn’t lose too many wickets, the pitch would have become better to bat on,” the India captain MS Dhoni said.

George Bailey (98) and Glenn Maxwell (92) were the stars with the bat for Australia while Mohammed Shami was the stand-out performer with the ball for the hosts.

In reply, Shikhar Dhawan scored three boundaries to set the tone of their chase before rain intervened. Australia lead 2-1 in the seven-game series with the next scheduled for Saturday at Cuttack.

“This could have been a reasonable good game of cricket,” Bailey, Dhoni’s counterpart, said. “There was a little bit of swing and seam … but things went well with the bat.”

The visitors posted a good total thanks to a record, 153-run stand for the fifth wicket between Bailey and Maxwell, who capitalized on numerous missed chances.

Struggling at 71 for four after Shami bowled a fiery first spell, 3-21 in six overs, to run through the top order, Australia recovered well thanks to Bailey and Maxwell, who went past Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin’s fifth-wicket stand of 144 runs in Bangalore in 2007.

Shami (3-42) was the pick of the bowlers while R Ashwin and Vinay Kumar took two wickets each.

“He is deceptive,” Dhoni said in praise of Shami. “He bowls quicker than you think. And in the death he was getting the yorkers in pretty consistently.”