India captain Rohit Sharma was left disappointed with his team's below-par performance in the second ODI against Australia which they surprisingly lost by 10 wickets in Vizag on Sunday.
Put into bat, Team India were bundled out for just 117 in 26 overs after Mitchell Starc took a five-wicket haul and in reply, Australia raced to victory in 11 overs thanks to Mitch Marsh's destructive 66 not out.
This was India's heaviest defeat in ODIs in terms of balls to spare (234) after they got bowled out for their lowest total against Australia in 50-overs cricket.
Barring Virat Kohli (31) and Axar Patel (29*), none of the other batters got a start while four Indians got out without even opening their accounts.
Rohit also pointed out that failure in the batting department led to India's downfall in the match.
Lack of application with bat hurts India
"If you lose a game, it is just disappointing. We didn't apply ourselves with the bat. Didn't put enough runs on the board. It wasn't a 117 wicket. Kept losing wickets and that didn't allow us to get the runs we wanted.
"Once we lost Shubman in the first over, myself and Virat got 30-35 runs quickly. But then I lost my wicket and we lost we lost a couple of wickets back to back. That put us on the back foot. It's always tough to come back from that situation," Rohit said after the match.
'Starc kept batters guessing'
The skipper also credited Mitchell Starc for the way he bowled in the powerplay and broke India's backbone with the quick wickets of Shubman Gill, Rohit and Suryakumar Yadav.
"Today wasn't the day for us. Starc is a quality bowler. He has been doing it for Australia with the new ball. He kept bowling to his strength. Swung the new ball and took the odd ball away. Kept the batters guessing," Rohit added.
The third and final ODI will be played at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on March 22 with both teams level at 1-1.
