Senior opener Shikhar Dhawan was taken off the field after he hurt his left shoulder in the series-deciding third ODI between India and Australia at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday.
Dhawan picked up the injury after he dived to save an Aaron Finch shot in the cover region before hurting his left shoulder in the fifth over of the three-match series-decider.
The 34-year-old had not taken the field for the entire duration of the Australian innings in the second ODI after a Pat Cummins bouncer hit him on the rib cage while batting.
Earlier on the day, Australia skipper Aaron Finch won the toss and opted to bat first. “Looks like a good wicket. If we had gone into the backovers three down, we could have chased it down. Josh Hazlewood in for Kane Richardson,” Finch was quoted as saying by the official twitter handle of BCCI.
“It’s a dry pitch, and it’s always been a difficult pitch to defend on. There might also be some dew later on. The execution of yorkers was excellent. Same team, no changes,” Indian skipper Virat Kohli stated ahead of the final match of the series.
The series was anyway expected to go down the wire and the way it has challenged the best players of both the sides, all the expectations have been fully fit. A hard-fought series like this deserves a fitting end and that is what the cricket world is anticipating to happen today in Bengaluru.
In all likelihood, the series-decider will be a run feast. In the last 7 years, whenever a team has batted first at this venue, they have scored a minimum of 300 runs. During this time period, there have been two ODIs played at this venue- both of them against Australia.