It was a bad start for India in the ODI series as Australia secured a 34-run victory in the first one-day international on Saturday despite a magnificent 133 from Rohit Sharma.
Chasing 289, India lost three quick wickets with just four runs on the board, as debutant Jason Behrendorff removed Shikhar Dhawan in the first over and Jhye Richardson drove home the advantage by sending Virat Kohli and Ambati Rayudu back inside three balls.
Rohit Sharma, who missed the final test to go home for the birth of his first child, celebrated his return to the tour with a 138-run partnership with Mahendra Singh Dhoni (51) to get the innings back on track, however, and while he was batting, India had a chance.
However, Dhoni's wicket at a crucial point in the match tilted the balance in favour of Australia.
"MS got out at the wrong time as he was looking to up the scoring rate at that point. If we would have had one more partnership, we would have been close to the target," said Indian skipper Virat Kohli at the post-match presentation.
Dhoni was given out leg-before-wicket, perhaps wrongly, with India still needing 148 runs from 107 balls. After Richardson removed Ravindra Jadeja and Dinesh Karthik, Rohit holed out to Glenn Maxwell in the deep off the bowling of Stoinis. In the end the tourists finished on 254-9.
"We're not very pleased with the way we played," said Kohli. "That wicket was about 300-plus par. I think Rohit played outstandingly well and MS supported him but I thought we could have done better with the tempo of the game and we fell short."
India were without KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya, who were suspended and sent home pending an inquiry into comments they made about women on a TV show this week which have been condemned as sexist and inappropriate.
It was only a fourth win in 20 one-dayers going back to June 2017 for world champions Australia and came at the same Sydney Cricket Ground where their first home test series loss to India was sealed on Monday.
"I'm very pleased," said Australia captain Aaron Finch. "We knew that they would try and take it deep and luckily we were able to take wickets and stem the flow.
"Anytime you get a team three down so early and three big guns is very important. The youngster Jhye is full of confidence and he's some pace."
The series resumes in Adelaide on Tuesday with the final match in Melbourne next Friday.
