Grass isn't always greener at Eden Gardens

Australia may rue letting India's destructive top order off the hook in Chennai on Sunday with the home side's batting power set to find conditions to their liking in Kolkata this week.

Paceman Nathan Coulter-Nile helped reduce India to 5-87 in Sunday's ODI series opener, the right-armer dismissing Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli and Manish Pandey in the space of just seven balls to leave the hosts reeling at 3-11 after they had elected to bat first.

But having allowed India to post 7-281, the Australians fell 26 runs short in their rain-reduced chase to go 0-1 down in the five-match series.

Opening bowlers Coulter-Nile and Pat Cummins have both played for Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League and the Western Australian warns the Aussie quicks won't have it easy for game two at the iconic Eden Gardens on Thursday.

"It's flat and a very high-scoring ground," he said.

"It gets very loud and the crowd gets right behind the home team. Unfortunately that won't be us this time, but hopefully it's high scoring and a fantastic match to watch."

Recent history at Eden Gardens suggests the batsmen will have it all their own way on Thursday; the ODI between England and India in Kolkata earlier this year saw 637 runs scored while the hosts amassed 5-404 here against Sri Lanka in 2014, including a world record individual score of 264 from opener Rohit Sharma.

But the inclement weather forecast this week in Kolkata, some 500km west of Chittagong, the host city for Australia's recent Test against Bangladesh, could provide some life in the pitch and some respite for the bowlers.

Coulter-Nile says the favourable conditions he found in Chennai are unlikely to be repeated too often for the rest of the series.

"The overhead conditions really suited so I think I was lucky there," he said.

"I'm not sure we're going to get those conditions everywhere we go so it was lucky we took advantage while it was on offer.

"I actually tried to hold back a little bit to try and get the ball to swing. I'm not like Patty (Cummins), I can't bowl 145 and swing it still. I've got to really get my wrist right so I could swing the ball and maybe give up a few (kilometres) see if I could get the ball moving and that ended up working."

In-form opener Shikhar Dhawan is missing the first three matches of this series for personal reasons, but India still boast an imposing top order led by their skipper Kohli.

The captain, opener Rohit and re-born former skipper MS Dhoni all average more than 70 in ODIs this year and it was Dhoni and star allrounder Hardik Pandya who led an impressive fightback after the loss of five early wickets on Sunday.

Aussie skipper Steve Smith lamented how his side had let a great opportunity slip as the Indian pair added a match-defining 118-run partnership.

"I think we went away from our plans a little bit," Smith said of Australia's bowling after the initial breakthroughs.

"We were hitting such a good length and we could have certainly persisted with that length for a while with the good bouncers we were bowling as well.

"But we were trying so many things, too many slower balls, and just not hitting that good hard length that we hit early on."

Australia's Qantas Tour of India

Australia ODI squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Ashton Agar, Hilton Cartwright, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Patrick Cummins, James Faulkner, Aaron Finch, Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa.

Australia T20 squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Jason Behrendorff, Dan Christian, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Patrick Cummins, Aaron Finch, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Glenn Maxwell, Tim Paine, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa.

India squad (first three ODIs): Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami.

ODI Fixtures

September 17: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai

September 21: Eden Gardens, Kolkata

September 24: Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore

September 28: M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru

October 1: VCA Stadium, Nagpur

T20 Fixtures

October 1: JSCA International Stadium, Ranchi

October 10: Barsapara Stadium, Guwahati

October 13: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad