Indian batsman Virat Kohli scored his 24th One-Day International century to take his team to 295-6 against Australia at Melbourne in the third of the five-match series. Doing so, the 27-year-old also became the fastest batsman in the world to reach 7,000 ODI runs in his 169th match and 161st innings.
Hitting a run-a-ball 117 before holing out in the death overs, Kohli continued his good form in ODIs in the last three months. He has now scored 489 runs in his last six innings, including two centuries. Kohli was supported by Shikhar Dhawan (68) and Ajinkya Rahane (50), as India fell short of the 300-mark by five runs.
Australian skipper Steven Smith won the toss for the first time in the series, but chose not to tamper with a winning formula and asked India to bat. Australia have won the first two matches of the series by chasing 300-plus scores. Smith said the pitch looked dry and would get better under lights.
While Australia made one change to their line-up, bringing all-rounder Mitchell Marsh back in place of Joel Paris, India introduced two debutants in middle-order batsman Gurkeerat Singh and all-rounder Rishi Dhawan. Manish Pandey and Ravichandran Ashwin lost out to accommodate the debutants.
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