India vs Australia series in numbers: Rohit, Kohli, Kuldeep and other record-breakers

After Australia handed a comprehensive trashing in the first match, not many would have expected India to win the series. This was also after India had lost their last three ODI matches against the same team at home prior to the first match of this series. After losing the toss at Mumbai, they lost the toss in next two matches as well – but that didn’t come as an obstacle in staging a comeback.

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Indian bowlers who couldn’t take a single wicket for over over 250 runs in the first match, took 19 wickets in next two matches, with Mohammed Shami being the leading wicket taker in both of them. Shikhar Dhawan, the top-scorer in both the first two matches, was forced to miss the final match of the series due to shoulder injury. This made the new wicket-keeper KL Rahul to also don the opening role in final match. Though this move wasn’t efficient with Rahul out for 19, India could win the match due to Rohit Sharma peaking at the right time, with significant contributions from Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer.

The likes of Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc had to go wicketless. Rohit Sharma reached his 29th ODI hundred, and got to the milestone of 9000 runs in the format as well. Virat Kohli won the man-of-the-series for scoring 183 runs.

Let’s have a look at some important numbers from the series.

5 – India had the nightmare of a start to the series as they lost the first match by 10-wicket. This is only the sixth time they failed to take a wicket in an unsuccessful chase, and the second time at home. Among all these five matches, this is only the second time for India at home. And the first time India won a series/tournament after losing one of its matches by 1-wicket.

Table: 10-wicket losses for India in ODIs

256 – The target Australia chased without losing a wicket in the first ODI is the second highest target chased successfully for no-loss in all ODIs. It is also the highest against India or highest away from home.

3 – During the second ODI at Rajkot, Kuldeep Yadav dismissed Alex Carey to become the third fastest Indian to take 100 ODI wickets, and the fastest among Indian spinners. Overall, he is the 10th fastest, and 4th fastest among spinners.

Table: Fastest Indian bowlers to take 100 ODI wickets

11208 – It is not uncommon for someone like Virat Kohli to break multiple records in every series. In the final match of the series, Virat Kohli overtook MS Dhoni for most runs by an Indian captain. Both are separated by just 1 run at this stage. But Kohli took lesser innings than Dhoni. Also in the same match, Kohli became the fastest to 5000 ODI runs as captain. He was the fastest to 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 runs as well.

Table: Fastest to 5000 runs as an ODI captain

3 – Rohit Sharma became the third fastest player to score 9000 runs, and only the second fastest among Indians after Virat Kohli. This happened despite batting at no.4 or lower at the start of his career, when he averaged just about 30 while reaching 2000 runs (in Jan 2013 at Mohali v ENG). Incidentally that was his first match as the permanent opener, and he never took a step back.

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49.27 – Rohit’s ODI average, which is the first time it crossed 49 in his ODI career. If he scores 135 runs, or an unbeaten 85 or above, in his next match, his average can cross 50.

1 – Total wickets taken by Jasprit Bumrah in the ODI series, which is easily his least of all the 15 series he played. However his economy rate of 4.58 is the best among everyone who bowled. No one else has an economy under 5, and the second best economy rate by a pacer in this series is 5.96 by Pat Cummins.

15 – This is the fifteenth time India won an ODI series after losing the first match. Three of them were against Australia, all since 2013.

2012-13 – The last time Virat Kohli didn’t score a hundred in two consecutive ODI series. His highest score in the recent series is 89 and in his previous series was 85. However two valuable knocks were enough to earn the man-of-the-series award. This is the seventh series where Virat Kohli the captain didn’t score a hundred, and four of them were since last year.