Top one-day cricket team Australia rallied from a shaky start to dominate India in their rain-shortened match at the MCG.
After losing the toss and struggling early in their innings on Sunday, the world No.1 side scored an impressive 65-run win in the opening game of the tri-series that also features Sri Lanka.
Wicketkeeper Matthew Wade top-scored in his one-day international debut with 67 and was named man of the match as Australia reached 5-216 from their allotted 32 overs.
The Indians were never in the hunt and were dismissed for 151 from 29.4 overs.
Clint McKay took 4-20 from 4.4 overs, while Virat Kohli top-scored with 31.
Wade also was named man of the match last week in his international Twenty20 debut.
The match attracted a crowd of 29,959, compared to more than 62,000 fans who attended Friday night’s Twenty20 clash at the same ground between these two teams.
The day had started badly for Australia, who lost paceman Brett Lee for the rest of the summer with a broken toe.
But it was a listless performance from India, only two days after they showed marked improvement in the Twenty20 win over Australia.
Their night was summed up by Ravichandran Ashwin’s runout for the eighth wicket.
He went for a third run that was never there and a sharp piece of team fielding caught him well short.
The Indians made a disastrous start to their innings when Ricky Ponting took a great low catch at gully to snare the vital wicket of Sachin Tendulkar for two.
Mitch Starc took his second wicket in the following over when Gautam Gambhir was caught behind for five, leaving the tourists 2-19.
Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma put on 51 to give India some hope before Mckay struck twice in his first over.
Ponting caught Kohli and Rohit was caught behind two balls later for 21, leaving the Indians 4-65.
Earlier, Australia rallied impressively from 2-25 immediately before the three-hour rain delay.
Groundstaff removed the covers several times during the enforced break, only to put them back on as another shower arrived.
When play resumed, captain Michael Clarke (10) was dismissed to leave Australia teetering at 3-49.
Wade and Michael Hussey quickly transformed the innings with a fourth-wicket stand of 73 runs from just 50 balls.
After Wade chopped onto his stumps, David Hussey blasted an unbeaten 61 from 30 balls, with four fours and three sixes.
Dan Christian, the other Australian first-gamer, made 17no.
Michael Hussey also scored 45 from 32 balls.
Opening bowler Vinay Kumar (3-21 from seven overs) was the pick of the Indian attack.
Rahul Sharma was two balls into his seventh over when the umpires realised he had exceeded his limit under the shortened format and Ravindra Jadeja bowled the next four balls.
Wade was picked for the first three games of this series, replacing Test wicketkeeper Brad Haddin.
Despite his strong international form so far, Wade said he was not starting to think long-term about his spot in the Australian team.
“That would be a bad option for myself,” he said.
“I just want to do as well as I can in the three games.
“If I look too far ahead, you don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s a pretty fickle game that we play.”
Wade said it had not been an easy win, despite the convincing scoreline.
“India are always tough – with the players they have, they’re going to play some really good cricket,” he said.
“It wasn’t an easy win, by any stretch … we had to work hard to get it.
“They bowled exceptionally well in the first 10-12 overs and then we got away from them a little bit.”
Indian captain MS Dhoni said opener Virender Sehwag was rested because of an unspecified niggle and also to give Rohit Sharma more experience.
Paceman Zaheer Khan also has A problem with his left knee.
Dhoni lamented some poor bowling through the middle of the Australian innings, saying he was effectively short two bowlers.
“You bowl loose deliveries, but there are certain deliveries that are so loose that they always go for a boundary and a six,” he said.
“Today we bowled quite a few of them.”
