ODI series whitewashes by Indian team

Indian captain Ajinkya Rahane (C) leads his team off the field after winning the second ODI against Zimbabwe

An Indian side consisting of no major players in the squad has just managed to win all the three ODI matches in Zimbabwe and completed a whitewash. The series win under a new captain has brought many positives as opposed to the last series in Bangladesh, which was lost 1-2 by a team containing all major players; almost the same bunch of players were part of the team’s journey to the semi-Finals of ICC World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand.

Under Ajinkya Rahane, the Indian side improved match by match. In the first match they won just off the last ball of the match by four runs while the next two victories were quite comfortable – by 62 and 83 runs respectively. All the three matches were played at Harare Sports Club Stadium in Harare. The Man of the Match awards were won by Ambati Rayudu, Murali Vijay and Kedar Jadhav in the three matches respectively. Ambati Rayudu was given the Man of the Series Award.

Interestingly, there was only one player who made his ODI debut in the series; most others were making a comeback, not having been part of the major side in recent years. Manish Pandey impressed the selectors on debut with a wonderful 71 runs, coming in to bat when the team was 68 for 3 in the 19th over. Along with Kedar Jadhav, who scored his maiden ODI century, shared a partnership of 144 runs, taking the total past 275 and scripted a victory of 83 runs to complete the whitewash.

This whitewash was India’s third for a 3-match ODI series, and overall the 9^th one in an ODI series of 3 or more matches. India has five whitewashes in 5-match series and one in a 4-match series.

Whitewashes by Indian team in ODI series of 3 or more matches

Margin	Against	Venue	Season	Captain	Player of the tournament
5-0	England	Home	2008/09	MS Dhoni	Yuvraj Singh
5-0	New Zealand	Home	2010/11	Gautam Gambhir	Gautam Gambhir
5-0	England	Home	2011/12	MS Dhoni	MS Dhoni
5-0	Zimbabwe	Away	2013	Virat Kohli	Amit Mishra
5-0	Sri Lanka	Home	2014/15	Virat Kohli	Virat Kohli
4-0	New Zealand	Home	1988/89	Dilip Vengsarkar	-
3-0	Sri Lanka	Home	1982/83	Kapil Dev	-
3-0	Zimbabwe	Home	1992/93	Mohammad Azharuddin	-
3-0	Zimbabwe	Away	2015	Ajinkya Rahane	Ambati Rayudu

• The first whitewash series of 5-0 against England in 2008/09 was scheduled for seven matches but due to the bomb blasts in Mumbai, the remaining two ODIs were cancelled.
• The 1988/89 series against New Zealand was a 5-match series, but the fifth match of the series was abandoned at Jammu and hence the Indian side won the series 4-0.
• Interesting to note is that MS Dhoni has just two whitewashes under his leadership, whereas when he was rested the stand-in captains produced more whitewashes – Gautam Gambhir against New Zealand, Virat Kohli against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka and Ajinkya Rahane against Zimbabwe now.
• Virat Kohli is the only Indian captain to script a whitewash in an away ODI series of 5 or more matches. Ajinkya Rahane is the only other captain to do it in series of three or more matches for India.

India has five 5-0 whitewashes in ODIs, which is the joint highest amongst all teams. Pakistan is the other team which has five such whitewashes.

Number of 5-0 whitewashes for each team in ODIs

Team	Number of whitewashes
Australia	4
Bangladesh	2
England	1
India	5
New Zealand	2
Pakistan	5
South Africa	3
Sri Lanka	4
West Indies	4
Zimbabwe	1

All of India’s 5-0 whitewashes have come since November 2008 while Pakistan’s last 5-0 whitewash in April 2008.