'Ineffectiveness with the ball, poor fielding cost us': Kohli after loss to Australia in 2nd ODI

Indian skipper Virat Kohli was critical of his team's bowling and fielding effort after his side's loss to Australia by 51 runs in the 2nd One-day international in Sydney.

Australia scored 389 runs batting first with their all top five batsmen scoring fifties and Steve Smith getting another century off 62 balls, identical with the first one.

Kohli said, "They completely outplayed us. We were not that effective with the ball, just didn't hit the areas we wanted to, consistently. They have a pretty strong batting line-up, they know these conditions and the pitches and the angles of the fields very well. We needed to hit one area consistetly and we didn't. 

"Looking at the scorecard, we made 340 and still lost by 50. The chase always felt bit too steep, and one or two wickets here and there was taking the run-rate upwards of 12s and 13s meant we had to keep hitting."

From the outset, it looked like a repeat telecast of the first game as the Australian openers David Warner and Aaron Finch stitched another 100-plus opening partnership, their 5th in the ODIs. Then Steve Smith took charge, smashed an identical 62-ball century. After that, Marnus Labuschagne and Glenn Maxwell too hit half-centuries.

In between, India didn't take their chances as they dropped a couple of catches, while Australia grabbed most of their catches and even held on to a couple of stunners.

Talking about the difference in bowling and fielding, Kohli said, "Catches win you games and that two chances that they grabbed on to, [were] probably the defining moments. A 90-odd run partnership between me and Shreyas (Iyer), if that was 130-140 then the game is closer, even my catch, if me and KL were there till 40-41st over, the game could have been a lot different."

Virat Kohli himself played an innings of 89 runs off 87 balls and while he was there, India had hopes of doing an unthinkable. He stitched crucial partnerships of 93 runs with Shreyas and 72 with KL Rahul but both him and Shreyas fell at wrong times and asking run rate got too much in the end for them.

Australia, now have taken an unassailable lead of 2-0 against India in the ODI series.

The third game of the series will be played on Wednesday, December 2 at the Manuka Oval in Canberra.