Sydney: A last chance to watch the Big Two in action in Australia

A sequence of back-to-back ducks is enough to merit resting even a megastar like Virat Kohli, what with it being a dead rubber in the final India-Australia ODI in Sydney on Saturday. More so since the batter waiting in the wings is the precocious Yashasvi Jaiswal.

However, it won’t be an easy call for Gautam Gambhir, who frequently talks about getting rid of the superstar culture in the team, and there are no prizes for guessing that the sellout crowd at Sydney Cricket Ground will come to see what will certainly be the last bow for ‘Big Two’ Kohli and Rohit Sharma on Australian soil. There is no ODI series scheduled for India Down Under in the next two years, making it virtually impossible for them to return to the shores as international cricketers.

Despite the narrow defeat in Adelaide on Thursday, Rohit will be breathing easy after he grafted his way to a useful 73 off 97 deliveries, the uncharacteristic but time-tested way to play oneself in. While no sweeping judgement should be passed on the basis of two innings each from men who have lorded over this format for more than 15 years, it will be safe to say Rohit has shown a bit more of the hunger to prove his critics wrong.

Abhishek Nayar, the Kolkata Knight Riders coach and a fellow Mumbaikar, had gone public in a viral interview about how the former India captain had subjected himself to a punishing regimen to lose 11 kg, which helped him feel a lot ‘lighter’ while moving between the wickets. It may also have been a subtle move on the part of Rohit’s machinery to have a knock at public spaces including  the iconic Shivaji Park, a bustling venue where the great Sachin Tendulkar had honed his skills, for the optics.

The regimen of Kohli in the UK, meanwhile, was a private affair with Dinesh Karthik — a former Indian teammate and RCB cohort — providing a peek at how the batting ace is getting ready to be back in business. An oft-repeated word in the modern cricketer’s lexicon is about following a ‘process’, but it’s questionable whether the two greats did it the right way by venturing against the likes of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood without a competitive game under their belt for five months.

However, there is no denying the fact that with the focus firmly on Rohit and Kohli, the team management has been stubborn on its insistence on ‘allrounders’ so that they can bat deep, leaving out the enigmatic Kuldeep Yadav for both games. In Adelaide, Adam Zampa — not half the spinner of Kuldeep’s calibre — returned with a haul of four for 60 to be the Man of the Match, while the latter sat out.

The Sydney pitch, considered spin-friendly, may finally see Kuldeep in the playing XI, but then either Harshit Rana or Arshdeep will have to sit out. The Men in Blue need to be more proactive against the clinical Aussies to prevent a 3-0 whitewash ahead of a challenging T20I series there.

 Catch the match

 3rd ODI: Australia vs India

 Venue: Sydney Cricket Ground

 Time: 9 am IST