Australia vs India: 3 Things we learnt from the 1st ODI

#2 Richardson needs to go to the World Cup

Richardson ran through the Indian batting

Australia decided to rest their premier fast bowlers for the ODI series after the trio had gone through an enormous amount of toil in the Tests. Thus, the likes of Jason Behrendorff and Jhye Richardson were called and boy, did they stand up to be counted.

The Perth Scorchers teammates dented India’s run-chase as they ripped through India’s top order. While the former accounted for Dhawan, the latter got the prized scalp of Kohli.

Richardson, though, wasn’t finished as he later captured the wickets of Jadeja and Karthik to cap off a sumptuous display. The right-arm pacer ended with astonishing figures of 10-2-26-4.

Throughout the innings, he troubled the visitors with his propensity to extract movement off the pitch. Additionally, Richardson was able to hurry the batsmen on a relatively flat pitch and duly earned his rewards.

The pacer had made his debut in 2018 and endured a rude baptism by fire against the hard-hitting English side. But, he seems to have learnt from those experiences and matured immensely.

So far, Australia haven’t zeroed in on a concrete template for the World Cup. Though their batting is an apparent concern, they can’t claim to boast of a settled bowling attack either.

Yet, if Richardson can conjure performances like today, he will feature at the forefront of any of those bowling discussions. For all we know, the pacer’s freshness and raw ability could just be the tonic for Australia’s ailments.