4. Solid opening partnership between Rahane and Rohit Sharma

Shikhar Dhawan missed the ODI series against Australia. It gave a chance to Rahane to open with Rohit Sharma. At Chennai and Kolkata, the opening partnership was not great adding just 11, 19. In the next ODI matches, both openers gave a brilliant start. Both Rohit Sharma and Rahane added 3-century partnerships which provided a solid foundation. Both of them put on 139 in 3^rd ODI at Indore, 106 in the 4^th ODI at Bengaluru and 124 in the 5^th ODI at Nagpur.

Rohit Sharma scored 125 in the 5^th ODI and was leading runs scorer with 296 runs in 5 matches. Rahane also contributed with 4 half-centuries in the series. With Shikhar Dhawan coming back into the ODI team, Rahane would become the third opener. Rohit Sharma scored 2 half centuries and 1 century. Rahane could not convert starts into big scores.