Shubman Gill blames Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli for India’s loss to Australia in 1st ODI

Shubman Gill made his debut as the ODI captain of the India National Cricket Team in the first game of the three-match series against the Australia National Cricket Team on Sunday, October 19.

The high-octane match between the Shubman Gill-led India National Cricket Team and Mitchell Marsh-led Australia National Cricket Team was hosted by the Perth Stadium.

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli fail in comeback match

The comebacks of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to international cricket ended on a sour note as the duo were unable to perform well in tough batting conditions.

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Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have become single-format players following their retirements from Test and T20I cricket, and they will only be in action in 50-over matches, which are played very rarely these days.

Kohli and Rohit worked really hard on their fitness and batting ahead of the Australia tour, and this development was confirmed by Dinesh Karthik and Abhishek Nayar.

Rohit lost 8-10 kilograms of weight to get into top shape, while Kohli made sure that he retained the 'fittest cricketer' tag by working on his body while he was away from the competitive cricket action.

When the modern-day batting greats landed in Perth, they were quick to hit the nets to ensure that they acclimatized themselves to the Australian conditions before the series.

Kohli looked very sharp in the first net session itself. It didn't look like he was away from the game for a very long time, and he timed his shots to perfection in the nets.

However, such was not the case with Rohit Sharma, who initially looked scratchy on the pitch. He didn't look very good at the start, but after spending some time in the middle, he regained the rhythm and started looking good.

Meanwhile, the training and hard work of the batting legends went in vain as both of them failed to score in the ODI series opener. Rohit Sharma returned with scores of 8 runs off 14 balls, while Virat Kohli bagged a duck.

On the fourth ball of the 4th over, Rohit edged a delivery from Josh Hazlewood to Matt Renshaw, while Virat Kohli played a drive off Mitchell Starc into the hands of Cooper Connolly.

When you lose three wickets in the powerplay, you're always trying to play a catch-up game - Shubman Gill

India could only post 136/9 on the board while batting, and Australia got a target of 131 runs to chase in a 26-over-per-side contest. The Mitchell Marsh-led side chased down the target with 29 balls remaining to win the match by 7 wickets.

Speaking during the post-match presentation ceremony, Shubman Gill pinned the blame on himself, Rohit Sharma, and Virat Kohli for India's poor show with the bat. He stated:

"When you lose three wickets in the powerplay, you're always trying to play a catch-up game (on the rain delays and the poor start). A lot of learnings for us from this game and a lot of positives for us as well.

We were very satisfied with that - Shubman Gill

Shubman Gill further said that he was quite satisfied with the way bowlers performed while chasing a small score and thanked Indian fans for showing up in big numbers. He said:

"We were defending 130 and we took the game, not till the very end, but pretty deep. We were very satisfied with that.

"We are very fortunate (on the crowd support). The fans turned up in huge numbers and hopefully they'll be able to cheer us on at Adelaide as well."

Also Read: Gautam Gambhir confronts Shubman Gill in Perth after he joins Virat Kohli in shameful captaincy list