'Bad day in office'- Shikhar Dhawan after India's defeat to Australia

Shikhar Dhawan, who forged a 121-run stand with K.L. Rahul for the second wicket, said that Rahul's wicket was the turning point of the match.

Shikhar Dhawan, who opened the batting with Rohit Sharma, scored 74 off 91 balls.

It may not have been the start India would have wanted, but Shikhar Dhawan doesn’t want to think too much about it. After suffering a 10-wicket defeat against Australia in the first ODI, Dhawan termed it as a ‘bad day in office’.

“We played well against West Indies as well, where all the batsmen did well and as players, we don’t focus too much on facts that are not happening. Shreyas (Iyer) has been doing so well, he is a young lad, whose one or two innings could go here and there, as a team we need to back each other and don’t focus too much on a loss,” Dhawan said.

Put in to bat, India lost Rohit Sharma early in the innings, but K.L. Rahul and Dhawan forged a 121-run stand for the second wicket. However, soon after Rahul’s dismissal, the script changed for India as it lost quick wickets. That, Dhawan feels, was the turning point of the game.

“When KL got out, that time we planned to accelerate and those four wickets we lost, that’s where we lost the momentum. We were targeting 300 runs and with the loss of wickets, we ended up scoring less runs on that sort of a wicket. In bowling too, we could not take early wickets. They outplayed us,” the opening batsman said.

“There was a bit of moisture on the pitch when we started batting. Their bowlers -- Pat Cummins -- bowled really well. He bowled really good length to me, there was extra bounce and pace. We handled the first 10-15 overs very nicely. Where we lost four wickets in a row, changed the game for us.”

With still two games remaining in the series, Dhawan is confident of the team bouncing back. “It’s a new day, so get ourself back and get the positivity going. We guys have been playing very good cricket the whole year, so one bad day in office is fine. We know we are a strong team and we will get back stronger.”

Going into the match, India tweaked its batting order a little -- elevating KL Rahul at No.3 instead of captain Virat Kohli. “Good on KL that he came at No. 3, he’s been batting as an opener in the last one or two series and the support staff asked him to bat at No.3 and he scored runs. He’s a brilliant player and he has been performing consistently, doing really well so I’m sure that he will keep doing well,” he said.