Short, Connolly help Australia seal series

Josh Hazlewood will bowl lesser spells and walk out with more wickets. At the Adelaide Oval on Thursday, he produced one of the great ODI spells that didn't produce a wicket but his efforts bore fruits at the other end as Australia kept India down to 264. Australia had a couple of wobbles chasing that but against a scruffy Indian outfit that fluffed its line, they found key contributions from Matt Short (73), Cooper Connolly (61*) and Mitch Owen (36) to get over the line and seal the ODI series with a game to go.

India produced a better performance than they had in Perth but it was still some way off from their high standards in the format. Shubman Gill lost yet another toss and his side was asked to bat first in conditions that had been spruced up by rain in the lead up to the game. They were up against an elite opponent, who was unwilling to give a sniff to the opposition. Hazlewood simply continued on from Perth and was at his metronomic best, landing the ball on a square on a good length and getting it to seam around one way and the other.

Rohit Sharma, in particular, struggled for any kind of rhythm and only managed his first run against the veteran bowler off the 25th ball he faced from him this series. Rohit survived a run-out chance, had a DRS review go in his favour and then had Australia burn the last of their referrals on him but managed to survive to score a fighting 73. His first two batting partners weren't accorded similar luck. Gill, looking in much bettter touch, tried to compensate for the accumulated dots at the other end against Xavier Bartlett but got too close to the ball during his charge and found mid-off.

In that very over, Bartlett, replacing Nathan Ellis in Australia's XI, set new batter Virat Kohli with up a couple of outswingers with an extra slip in place before bowling a full ball that nipped in appreciably to beat the flick and thud into the pads, plumb in front of stumps. It marked the first time that Kohli had been dismissed for successive ducks in his storied ODI career. In what could be his last appearance at a venue he's enjoyed so much success, Kohli walked off the Adelaide Oval to a standing ovation which he acknowledged with a wave.

India were down to 29 for 2 in the PowerPlay on another tricky pitch and it needed Rohit and Shreyas Iyer to put the innings back in order and avoid a Perth-like collapse. First they had to survive Hazlewood's first spell, which extended to seven overs in which he bowled 32 dots and drew a false shot percentage of 45.2. As projected, the going did get easy, relatively, when Hazlewood was off the attack.

The shackles were broken in the 19th over when Rohit, having crawled to 30 off 62, connected with two of his attempted pulls against Mitch Owen and sent them over the short square boundary for sixes. Iyer added a four of his own to complete a 17-run over, setting the ball moving for India's recovery.

The pair did well to ensure the spinners, who were in operation post the 20th over, didn't settle down easily. Marsh responded to the changed tempo by rotating Zampa, Connolly and Short around so as to not give any long sighters to the two batters. Still the nine overs of spin brought 49 risk-free runs for India. Rohit got to his half-century off 74 balls, his slowest fifty post 2015, while Iyer got there off 67 balls. But just when India ought to have kicked on, they stumbled once again.

Starc returned to dismiss Rohit for 73 with a harmless short ball that Rohit pulled straight to long-leg. Three overs later Iyer got an inside edge while attempting to drive Zampa and lost his stumps. Zampa added a second when he castled KL Rahul with a flipper that the batter rocked back to pull but failed to connect. Axar Patel though continued to thrive at No.5, hitting five boundaries in his 41-ball 44. But he too fell against the run of play, looking to loft Zampa over long-off but falling to a neat catch from Starc. Zampa got a fourth when Nitish Reddy charged out and was stumped.

At 226 for 8, India were at risk of folding for a sub-250 score but in Harshit Rana and Arshdeep Singh they found an unlikely pair for some lower-order resistance. Rana picked up three fours and 16 runs off Zampa's final over, denying the leg spinner a five-fer. He and Arshdeep put on 37 runs for the ninth wicket to give India a fighting total.

It was still a sub-par total, but it was a score they ought to have done better defending with the pitch still offering movement with the new ball. Mohammed Siraj and Arshdeep Singh bowled tight lines and denied any easy scoring opportunities in the PowerPlay, the latter rewarded with the wicket of Marsh. Even Travis Head, so often the scourge of India, fell for a subdued 40-ball 28 when he was too early on a flick shot against Rana and chipped a simple catch to Kohli at mid-off.

India ought to have squeezed in thereafter but the lack of bowling firepower allowed Australia to get away as Matt Short and Matt Renshaw stitched together a useful stand. Nitish Reddy's three overs went for 24 but he was unlucky not getting Short for 23 with Axar Patel putting down a routine catch at backward point. Given India were playing with two finger spinners in their line-up, Gill had Siraj and Arshdeep come back for second spells with both seamers done with seven overs inside the first half of the chase.

That meant the spinners had a big role to play through the middle overs. Axar ended the 55-run stand when he dropped his pace down to 83 kilometres per hour and castled Renshaw for 30. Washington Sudnar then got local hero Alex Carey missing an attempted sweep and losing his stumps. That left Australia at a precarious 132 for 4 after 27 overs. When India should have pushed through, their profligacy allowed Australia to escape with another 55-run partnership with Cooper Connolly starting brightly

Short, who had raced away to a 48-ball half-century, offered another chance when on 55 but Siraj put down a sitter at point which should have given Washington his second wicket. Connolly turned the tables by picking up a pair of boundaries off Axar in the 32nd over and another off Washington in the next. Short, who had now shifted to playing second fiddle, ramped up the pressure by slog sweeping Washington for his second six and then bludgeoned a pair of fours off Harshit before falling to a short ball while attempting another four.

India's hopes of an opening though were quickly quashed by new batter Owen, who walked in and instantly took control of the chase by hitting two fours and two sixes off Rana. It effectively brought the equation down to 48 runs from the final 10 overs. Twenty seven off those remaining runs came in the next two overs as the wheels appeared to come off India's defence with two of their players including Rana struggling from cramps. Owen fell for a match-defining 23-ball 36 but Connolly ensured he batted through some late jitters and saw the team over the line.

Brief scores: India 264/9 in 50 overs (Rohit Sharma 73, Shreyas Iyer 61; Adam Zampa 4-60, Xavier Bartlett 3-39) lost to Australia 264/8 in 46.2 overs (Matt Short 73, Cooper Connolly 61*; Arshdeep Singh 2-41) by two wickets.