2 reasons why Ashwin was dropped...

Australia beat India by three wickets in the third ODI at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday and clinch the series 3-0.

Scorecard

PHOTOS: Maxwell blasts Australia to ODI series victory at MCG

After series loss, check out Dhoni's TOP excuses...

India made two changes for this must-win game, with Gurkeerat Mann and Rishi Dhawan handed debuts on account of their all-round capabilities. Ravichandran Ashwin and Manish Pandey made way for them in the playing eleven.

"I thought he (Ashwin) bowled well in the last game but it was the only slot available for trade. Because we couldn’t have dropped Ravindra Jadeja and played with Gurkeerat Mann and Rishi Dhawan as that makes batting slightly difficult. We needed that extra bowler also and for that we had to leave Manish Pandey out,” explained captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

"So that we could bring in Gurkeerat who could bowl 4-5 overs of spin if needed, and that was the reasoning behind it. We also wanted to see what Rishi has to offer and I felt that he bowled decently in this game. With 2-0 down in the series, this was the only game where we could have made these changes," said the skipper.

Australia were in a spot of bother when they were six- down at one stage. But Glenn Maxwell played an uncharacteristic innings of 96 to take the side home.

"It was an evenly-placed game at that point of time. There was a bit of dew also which meant the wicket would get slightly better. But at the same time, if we would have not given easy boundaries, we would have been able to maintain some kind of pressure that induces a false shot. There were a lot of misfields and that takes the pressure off the batsmen," said Dhoni.