Rohit Sharma became the seventh Indian to complete 100 catches in One-Day Internationals, while young speedster Harshit Rana went level with decorated spinner Ravichandran Ashwin for the record of most wickets for India after a player’s first eight ODIs, in the third and last match of the series against Australia, in Sydney, on Saturday.
After Australia elected to bat first, Rohit flexed his safe catching hands by effortlessly completing two opportunities and entered the special club.
The 38-year-old joined Virat Kohli (164), Mohammad Azharuddin (160), Sachin Tendulkar (140), Rahul Dravid (124), Suresh Raina (102) and Sourav Ganguly (100).
For his first catch of the day, Rohit, stationed at the slip, comfortably pouched the thick outside edge of Mitchell Owen (1) that flew to him off Harshit Rana.
For his second, Nathan Ellis, who tried to make the most of Prasidh Krishna's low full toss, holed out to Rohit on 16(19).
While Rohit remained clinical in the field, Harshit stole the limelight with a searing spell and scythed a four-wicket haul.
His clinical performance took his tally to 16 wickets, level with Ashwin, who also had 16 after his first eight ODIs.
Prasidh Krishna, Ajit Agarkar, both with 19, and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah (17) are the other Indians to scalp more than Harshit.
Under pressure, and with questions around his place in the team, Harshit silenced his critics by leaving Australia's batting unit jolted with sizzling figures of 4/39 in an 8.4-over spell. His dazzling spell restricted Australia to 236.
Harshit was instrumental in orchestrating one of Australia's worst batting collapses in their rich ODI history. There haven't been many instances of Australia cruising at a 180-plus score for the loss of three wickets and then crumbling against the opposition attack.
However, India put a dent in their impeccable record by forcing them to crumble from 183/3 to 236.
Australia lost its last seven scalps for a mere 53 runs, resulting in the hosts falling well short of exploiting Sydney's high-scoring conditions.
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