Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli fail on their return to international cricket, score 8 and 0 in first ODI vs Australia

Rohit Sharma, who was sacked from the ODI captaincy before the series against Australia, managed just 8 runs in the series opener at the Optus Stadium. He looked uncomfortable from the start, and despite hitting a boundary, the veteran could never get going. Josh Hazlewood bowled outside the off stump, with Rohit edging the delivery straight to
Matt Renshaw, who took a simple catch in the third slip in the 4th over of India’s innings. With the pace and bounce in the wicket, Mitchell Starc and Hazlewood put the former skipper under pressure from the start.

Rohit’s last competitive game was for the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League 2025. He shed 11 kgs to be in shape and worked hard under the supervision of Abhishek Nayar before travelling to Australia.

Virat Kohli was sent back without troubling the scorers. He faced 8 balls and was dismissed by Starc in the 7th over. It is the first duck registered by Kohli in a fifty-over game in Australia.

The Aussie pacer drew Kohli into a drive, and the thick edge of his bat went to Cooper Connolly, who dived to his left to complete the catch.

The selectors have already put Rohit and Virat on notice period, and failures against the Aussies could end their ODI careers. The two have already retired from T20Is and Test cricket.

Earlier, Australia’s stand-in captain, Mitchell Marsh, won the toss and invited the visitors to bat first.

Australia: Travis Head, Mitch Marsh (captain), Matt Short, Josh Philippe, Matt Renshaw, Mitch Owen, Cooper Connolly, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Ellis, Matt Kuhnemann, Josh Hazlewood.

India: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill (captain), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Nitish Reddy, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj