Maxwell's stunner removes Kohli for 0

India captain Virat Kohli has been dismissed for a duck in his first match against Australia since their ill-tempered Test series earlier this year.

Glenn Maxwell took a stunning one-handed catch above his head at point to remove Kohli without scoring for the 12th time in his stellar ODI career and just the second time in more than three years.

The dismissal of Kohli was one of three early wickets for Nathan Coulter-Nile in the first ODI in Chennai, the paceman removing Ajinkya Rahane, Kohli and Manish Pandey in the space of just seven balls to reduce India to 3-11 after the hosts had elected to bat first.

Coulter-Nile is playing his first international match since June last year having battled a series of serious injuries.

And India could have been four down had skipper Steve Smith not put down a catch at second slip off the bat of star opener Rohit Sharma, this time off the bowling of Pat Cummins.

Having first removed Rahane, who edged behind for five, Coulter-Nile lured Kohli into an uppish drive outside the off stump. The right-hander got a good piece of it and the ball went flying above Maxwell at point, who leapt in the air and threw his right arm above his head. The ball nestled perfectly in his right hand and the sell-out crowd at Chepauk Stadium was silenced.

Maxwell had dropped a far simpler catch in almost the exact same spot on the ground in Australia's warm-up match on Tuesday, but he held on when it mattered today.

Two balls later, Coulter-Nile had his third when Pandey also edged behind to Matthew Wade.

Kohli, the world's best one-day batsman, had been dismissed for a duck against Sri Lanka in the ICC Champions Trophy in June, which was his first ODI duck since August 2014.

The series is the first time India and Australia have faced off since their fiery Test series in February and March of this year, which the hosts won 2-1.

Maxwell's drop on Tuesday was one of four simple chances missed by the Australians in their match against a Board President's XI, leading coach David Saker to demand a lift in standards.

"We really let ourselves down in the field," said Saker, who is filling in for regular head coach Darren Lehmann on this tour.

"We've talked about attitude and I think with fielding the big thing is attitude. I think if you bring the right attitude, generally you field quite well.

"We can't afford to be dropping four or five catches and missing run outs as well.

"We've talked about that and we know fielding is going to play a big part in this series and Australian cricket do pride themselves on being one of the best fielding teams in the world so we'll keep working on that in the next few days.

"I think it's an attitude thing and making sure the attitude is right."

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, Peter Handscomb, 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 7: JSCA International Stadium, Ranchi

October 10: Barsapara Stadium, Guwahati

October 13: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad