Manish Pandey yesterday struck his maiden one-day century in a high-scoring thriller to secure India a pride-salvaging six-wicket victory against Australia in the fifth and final one-day international (ODI) in Sydney.
Staring at a series whitewash after four defeats, India rode Pandey’s scintillating 104 off 81 deliveries to chase down a 331-run target with two balls to spare.
Centuries from David Warner (122) and Mitchell Marsh (102) helped Australia post 330-7, but Pandey’s knock in his fourth ODI clinched the contest.
Photo: AFP
India needed a strong start from their openers to stay on course to chase down such a big total and the visitors got just that from Shikhar Dhawan (78) and Rohit Sharma (99).
Dhawan posted his third successive 50-plus score and Rohit fell agonizingly short of his third century in the series as they raised 123 runs in 18.2 overs.
John Hastings dismissed Dhawan and Virat Kohli (8) in quick successions to slow India’s progress and Rohit left leaving India needing exactly 100 runs from 91 balls.
With the required required run rate rising and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (34) struggling to time the ball, Pandey’s crisp hitting left India needing 13 runs off the last over from Marsh.
Marsh began with a wide and had his next hit out of the ground by Dhoni, but the India captain fell immediately to inject fresh drama in the contest.
However, Pandey was unfazed and he hit the next ball for four to first complete his century and then scurried two for the winning run.
Earlier, Warner struck his fifth ODI century and Mitchell Marsh notched up his first in a series that provided 3,159 runs.
India’s much-maligned bowlers did well to reduce Australia to 117-4 in the 22nd over before Warner and Marsh combined to add 118 runs in 17.3 overs.
Jasprit Bumrah made an impressive debut, the right-arm paceman with an unorthodox bowling action sending down 10 tidy overs to claim 2-40 with some tight death bowling.
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