Mohammed Shami threw Australia their first challenge of the series against the new balls as he ran through the top order in Ranchi. Bowling a testing length at pace and generating movement under some cloud cover, Shami delivered an opening spell of 6-1-21-3. Shami could have added a fourth wicket, had Virat Kohli not put down the captain George Bailey first ball at third slip in the sixth over of the innings.

As it turned out, Bailey, put down again on 35, by R Ashwin off Vinay Kumar, had motored to his third half-century of the series by the halfway mark. Glenn Maxwell had also settled, and the fifty stand had recovered some ground from 32 for 3.

India went into the fourth ODI with a fresh new-ball pair of Shami and Jaydev Unadkat. Ishant Sharma was benched after his Mohali meltdown, as was Bhuvneshwar Kumar, probably to give the side more leeway at the death. While Unadkat was disciplined with his left-armers, it was Shami who possessed the bite India had missed through the first three games, albeit the overhead conditions were conducive for seam bowling and the pitch contained some moisture.

The lowest opening stand for Australia had been 68 so far this series. Fifth ball of his opening over, Shami pitched it up, got it to move in and hit the top of Aaron Finch's citadel. Finch had been content to hang onto the back foot against the new balls off Bhuvneshwar and Ishant, but with Shami bowling consistently around 140 kph, the same ploy came undone. In his third over, Shami got one to lift sharply from a good length, and a surprised Phillip Hughes could only snick it through to the wicketkeeper.

Shane Watson counter-attacked in typical fashion with a few aggressive boundaries. But Shami found just enough inward movement off the last ball of the eighth over to go between bat and pad on an attempted drive and hit the stumps.

Adam Voges fell early to Ashwin as he missed a sweep, but Bailey rode on his luck to make sure Australia kept picking runs at a fair clip. India's other bowlers weren't able to keep up the intensity of Shami's spell. Vinay delivered an entire opening over of gentle looseners, and Bailey drove and pulled him for three boundaries. Ashwin wasn't allowed to settled down, as Bailey and Maxwell kept turning the strike over.