Australia chasing 118 target against India in second men’s ODI – live

Hello everybody and welcome to the second ODI of the cricket-for-cricket’s sake series between India and Australia. Weather permitting, we’ll be underway in Visakhapatnam at 1.30pm local time (7pm AEDT).

Smash cut to Geoff Lemon’s introduction from the first ODI on Friday:

If you want another indication of how meaningful this series is, no Australian media outlet is covering it. None. All of us who did the Test series headed for the exits afterwards. Even the cricket.com.au contingent from the in-house Cricket Australia site. They went to the Caribbean and Bangladesh on the team plane during the pandemic for white-ball tours, but not this. Cricbuzz and Cricinfo will have their Australian correspondents at this first match in Mumbai, but only because they had other things to take care of in the same city. Nobody will be travelling to the second and third matches. Why? Because this series was added only a couple of months ago and serves no purpose aside from filling screen time. English players were scathing about the one-dayers they played right after the T20 World Cup last November, and half their reserve players preferred to play the Pakistan Super League T20s than show up in Bangladesh for England matches over the past couple of weeks. We’re at an interesting stage in the life cycle of bilateral contests.

Friday’s series opener was far from a classic with bowlers from both sides dominating before KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja steered India home by five wickets.

Let’s see what we have in store today.

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