5 instances when India's batting line-up choked while chasing in ODIs

On Wednesday, we saw the Indian cricket team losing against Australia in Canberra despite looking like overwhelming favourites for most parts of the chase. This wasn’t the first instance of India losing from a situation where they looked like they would win a match easily with the bat.What might surprise readers is that just one of the five instances mentioned in this article occured outside India. As one would expect, Sachin Tendulkar was a lone warrior in a couple of these matches.Here are 5 times when the Indian batting line-up choked while chasing a target in ODIs:

#5 vs Australia - Kolkata, 2003

159/4 to 198 all out

The first of three matches on this list that features the Australian cricket team, this was the final of the TVS Cup in 2003 - a tournament in which New Zealand were the third team.

In the absence of Sourav Ganguly, the Men in Blue were led by Rahul Dravid who lost the toss to his Australian counterpart Ricky Ponting who elected to bat first. The world champions huffed and puffed their way to 235/5 from 50 overs, mainly thanks to an unbeaten 28-ball 44 from a young Michael Clarke.

During the chase, India were 159/4 at the start of the 35th over, needing 77 runs to win from 16 overs. That was when Clarke proved to be the difference with the ball in his hand – picking up the wickets of Hemang Badani and Dravid, which led to a massive collapse from India’s batting line-up.

Ajit Agarkar tried his best with an unbeaten 26 at a brisk pace, but he found no support from the other end and India were bowled out for 198.

What would have hurt Indian fans the most was that this was a perfect opportunity for the Indian cricket team to get one over the Australians who had beaten them in the World Cup final earlier that year.

#4 vs West Indies - Kanpur, 1994

195/5 (41 overs) to 211/5 (50 overs)

Unlike the other matches on this list, this wasn’t a batting collapse where India lost a bunch of wickets after looking set to chase down a total.

In the Wills World Series, a tri-series which featured India, West Indies and New Zealand, India were facing West Indies in the 4th match at Green Park, Kanpur. After Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin had put West Indies into bat, the Caribbean side ended their innings on 257/6 after 50 overs.

Manoj Prabhakar and Sachin Tendulkar got India off to a solid start with a 50-run partnership for the opening wicket. The West Indians picked up wickets regularly and didn’t let the Indian batsmen build a huge partnership, but when Ajay Jadeja was dismissed, India needed just 63 runs to win from 9 overs.

While scoring at 7 runs an over wasn’t considered the easiest of tasks back in the 1990s, Prabhakar and Nayan Mongia’s methods in chasing down the total was heavily questioned. In the 9 overs, they scored just 16 runs with both batsmen unbeaten at the end of the innings.

Despite Prabhakar scoring a century, Mongia and him were dropped for the rest of the series with the match referee docking India two points – which was later revoked – for the manner of the run chase.

#3 vs Australia - Canberra, 2016

277/1 to 323 all out

The most recent match on this list, India had two centurions – Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli – in the middle and needed just 72 runs to win from 75 balls with 9 wickets in hand – a situation which is considered to be a cakewalk in modern-day limited overs cricket.

But when Dhawan perished with the score on 277 and MS Dhoni was dismissed for a duck in the same over, Australia sniffed a possible win and they didn’t let go. India would go on to lose wickets at regular intervals and lose the game by a comfortable margin in the end.

Even Kohli, who was looking invincible while Dhawan was in the middle, played a half-hearted lob to mid-off to lose his wicket. For the Indian ODI vice-captain, this match would have definitely reminded him of the Adelaide Test in 2014, when India endured a similar collapse after they looked all set to chase down 364 in the 4th innings.

In the Indian innings, just one batsman from positions 4 to 11 – Ravindra Jadeja – managed to put on a double digit score.

#2 vs Australia - Hyderabad, 2009

299/4 to 347 all out

Sachin Tendulkar’s 175 against Australia will go down as one of the best knocks in a losing cause in ODI history.

With the series level on 2-2, this was the 5th ODI in the 7-match ODI series. Australian captain Ricky Ponting didn’t have much hesitation in electing to bat first on a pitch that was like paradise for the batsmen.

Batting first, the Aussies managed to score a mammoth 350 in their 50 overs – mainly thanks to a run-a-ball century from Shaun Marsh and half-centuries from Shane Watson and Cameron White.

India got a blazing start in their chase with Virender Sehwag and Tendulkar on the attack from the word go. After Sehwag was dismissed for 38, the Indians failed to get any meaningful partnership going and were reduced to 162/4.

That was when Tendulkar finally found a reliable ally in Suresh Raina and the duo would go on to put on a century stand for the 5th wicket. At 299/4, with 52 runs needed from 46 deliveries, it looked like India would cruise to victory.

Raina’s dismissal in the 43th over, though, saw the Australians given an opening. Harbhajan Singh, who came into bat next didn’t trouble the scorers. Tendulkar, on the other hand, kept going strong and at 332/6 at the start of the 48th over, it looked like India’s match.

The Master Blaster played an uncharacteristic scoop shot and was caught at fine-leg for 175. The Indian tail succumbed to the Australian bowling and were bowled out for 347, losing the match by 3 runs.

#1 vs Sri Lanka - World Cup SF 1996

98/1 to 120/8

This was a bitter pill for a lot of Indian cricket fans to swallow. Being the co-hosts of the World Cup, the Indian side, led by Mohammad Azharuddin, were one of the favourites to grasp the coveted trophy.

After beating arch-rivals Pakistan in an enthralling encounter in Bengaluru, India were confident of bettering Sri Lanka at the iconic Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata. Javagal Srinath had dismissed the destructive opening pair of Sri Lanka – Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana – in the first over, but a brilliant counter-attacking knock from Aravinda da Silva helped the Arjuna Ranatunga-led side to 251/8 in their 50 overs.

Despite losing Navjot Singh Sidhu early on during the chase, India seemed to be in control when Sachin Tendulkar and Sanjay Manjrekar were in the middle. But an error of judgement from the former saw him stumped off the bowling of Jayasuriya and the floodgates were opened.

From 98/1, India would go on to lose 3 wickets for just 3 runs. Amidst the collapse, we also saw Srinath’s surprising promotion to bat at number 5 as a pinch-hitter. Needless to say, the strategy didn’t work and India were 120/8 when crowd trouble forced the match referee Clive Lloyd to call off the match and award the win to Sri Lanka.