Team India skipper M S Dhoni again turned on the screws against Australia, hitting 70 not out, even as fellow player Yuvraj Singh made 78 runs to put the home team at a comfortable pace to beat the tourists by 6 wickets in the third one-dayer in New Delhi on Saturday night.
Chasing a target of 230 runs to win, India proceeded with caution after losing their top three batsmen to reach 101 at the half-way stage of the chase in Delhi.
The hosts were wobbling at 53 for 3 but Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni stitched an unbroken 48-run partnership to slowly pull India out of the hole. The game was evenly balanced as Australia would know that they can seize the advantage with couple of quick strikes.
On a wicket that increasingly got slower and lower, the Indian batsmen, barring Sachin Tendulkar, had their share of troubles. They didn't struggle in the conventional sense but were handicapped by the pitch and the disciplined bowling and couldn't play shots
Earlier India contained Australia to 229 for five in the third cricket one-dayer despite Michael Hussey's rollicking unbeaten 81 and Ricky Ponting's fighting half century on a tricky pitch in New Delhi on Saturday night.
Electing to bat after winning the toss, The Aussies found the runs difficult to come by on a slow Feroze Shah Kotla track.
Michael Hussey and Ricky Ponting (59) relied on their experience to score the bulk of the runs for the visitors, who have now left India to score at an asking rate of 4.40 runs per over to take a 2-1 lead in the series.
While Shane Watson (41) also chipped in with a useful contribution, none of the other Australian batsmen could hang around for long on a pitch which was not conducive for strokeplay. PTI
