Shubman Gill’s ODI captaincy tenure began with a heavy seven-wicket defeat against Australia in the rain-marred affair at Perth on Sunday (October 19).

The game also marked former captains Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s return to international cricket after seven months. However, they failed to live up to the expectations on comeback, getting dismissed for 8 and 0 by Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc respectively.

Things turned to worse when in-form Gill was removed by Nathan Ellis for 10 as the Australian pacer trio reduced the visitors to 25/3 inside the powerplay.

Not only were the Indians playing catch-up after losing their top-three cheaply, frequent rain interruptions also affected their chances of building some momentum. KL Rahul (38) and Axar Patel’s (31) handy contributions and all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy’s unbeaten 19 off 11 on ODI debut gave the Indian innings some impetus.

However, a score of 136/9 after 26 overs in a rain-hit fixture was never going to challenge the world champions, especially after their target was revised to 131 using the DLS method.

“When you lose three wickets in the powerplay, you’re always trying to play a catch-up game,” Gill said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

“A lot of learnings for us from this game and a lot of positives for us as well. We were defending 130 and we took the game, not till the very end, but pretty deep. We were very satisfied with that,” he added.

India and Australia will now square off in the second ODI of the three-match series at the Adelaide Oval on October 23. It will be a must win game for the tourists to stay alive in the series.

“We are very fortunate. The fans turned up in huge numbers and hopefully they’ll be able to cheer us on at Adelaide as well,” Gill remarked.