Gill rues early collapse as India begin Australia tour with heavy defeat in Perth ODI: 'Trying to play a catch-up game'

Shubman Gill rued India losing three wickets upfront after being invited to bat by Australia as his tenure as his tenure as ODI captain began with a seven-wicket defeat in Perth on Sunday . The opening game of India’s white-ball tour of Australia at the Optus Stadium was meant to be a celebration for Indian cricket fans with former captains Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli returning to international cricket after seven months.

Their comeback, however, turned sour as Rohit (8) and Kohli (0) were dismissed by senior pacers Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc respectively, with Kohli departing for an eight-ball duck.

Things would then go from bad to worse when in-form captain Gill followed Kohli to the dressing room shortly after, getting strangled down the leg side in Nathan Ellis’ first ball of the afternoon as the Australian pacer trio reduced India to 25/3 inside the powerplay, getting rid of the famed top-three cheaply.

Not only were the Indians playing catch-up after losing their top order early, frequent interruptions due to rain also affected their chances of building some momentum in the middle overs. KL Rahul (38) and Axar Patel’s (31)  handy contributions and all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy’s unbeaten 19 off 11 on ODI debut gave the Indian innings some impetus.

Gill says ’lot of learnings’ for India from Perth defeat

However, a score of 136/9 after 26 overs in a rain-affected game was never going to challenge the Australians, especially after their target was revised to 131 using the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method.

“When you lose three wickets in the powerplay, you’re always trying to play a catch-up game,” Gill said after the match, reflecting on India’s batting collapses as well as rain interruptions.

“A lot of learnings for us from this game and a lot of positives for us as well. We were defending 130 and we took the game, not till the very end, but pretty deep. We were very satisfied with that,” he added.

Hazlewood would finish as the pick of the Australian bowlers with figures of 2/20 from 7 overs while debutant Mitchell Owen (2/20 from 3) and Matthew Kuhnemann (2/26 from 4) also collected a couple of wickets each.

Later in the evening, Gill’s Australian counterpart Mitchell Marsh steered his side home with an unbeaten 46, with Josh Philippe (37) and Matt Renshaw (21 not out) supporting him with valuable knocks as the hosts chased the target down with seven wickets and nearly five overs to spare .

With Sunday’s loss, Gill has now lost his maiden game as India captain in all three formats, all three away from home – against Zimbabwe in the T20I format in July last year and against England in June in the Test cricket.

Gill, however, is yet to lose a series as India captain; he had led a second-string Indian team to a 4-1 T20I series victory in Zimbabwe and a full-strength side to a 2-2 stalemate against England, which was followed by a 2-0 sweep against West Indies at home earlier this month.

The 26-year-old will be hoping that the Men in Blue are able to keep that record intact by pulling off a series-leveling victory in Adelaide against the Mitchell Marsh-led Australian team, which is missing regular ODI captain Pat Cummins – who’s racing against time to get fit for the upcoming Ashes.

“We are very fortunate. The fans turned up in huge numbers and hopefully they’ll be able to cheer us on at Adelaide as well,” Gill added during the post-match presentation ceremony, thanking the Indian supporters in Perth looking forward to the next game.