Nagpur: Rohit Sharma's brilliant century guided India towards victory beating the visitors by 7 wickets in the fifth and the final ODI here on Sunday night and gave the hosts a 4-1 series win taking them back to the top of the ICC ODI rankings.
India chasing a target of 243 had no difficulty as Rohit (125) and Ajinkya Rahane (61) helped India inching closer towards victory with a 124-run stand, their third century stand in a row, before the former shared a 99-run partnership with captain Virat Kohli (39) to take the team towards a comprehensive win.
Chasing a modest 243, India achieved it in 42.5 overs with Manish Pandey hitting the winning four.With this century Rohit completed his 14th century, and became the 9th Indian to achieve 6000 run in ODIs.
Despite a good start by the by David Warner (53) and Aaron Finch (32), Indian bowlers restricted Australia to below par 242.Left-arm spinner Axar Patel's 3/38 in 10 overs was the star bowler for India.Rahane who stood solid till the 22nd over was bowled out in the 23rd over despite his fourth consecutive half century.
After Rahane's dismissal, Rohit and Kohli tried to finish the game early, but both were sent back to the pavallion however the damage was already done.
Australia won the toss and elected to bat first, but could not gain the momentum provided by opening pair David Warner (53) and Aaron Finch (32) putting a 66 run partnership for the first wicket.
Though Travis Head (42) and Marcus Stoinis (46) tried their best adding 87 run for the fifth wicket partnership, but other batsman failed to contribute.Left-arm spinner Axar Patel's 3/38 in 10 overs was the star bowler for India while, Bumrah claimed 2 wickets, Jadhav, Hardik Pandya and Kumar took one wickets each. (UNI)