KL Rahul hit the winning runs with a six to finish on 97 not out as the home side cantered to a six-wicket win with nearly nine overs to spare.

While on the face of it, it appeared easy it did not seem it was going to be that way when, after only two overs, India had lost three wickets with only two runs after their captain Rohit Sharma, opening partner Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were all dismissed without scoring.

For a few moments, the sea of blue shirts among the 33,190 crowd inside the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium must have contemplated the worst as Australia’s total of 199, which had looked easily achievable, suddenly began to take on the scale of a bigger target for the two-time World Cup winners.

Then Rahul and Virat Kohli shared a fourth wicket stand of 165 before the latter was out on 87 with 33 runs still required.

India's total of two runs is the lowest score at the fall of the third wicket from which any team went on to win in men's one day internationals in their 52-year history,

Australia will have left wondering what could have been as, with India on the rocks after their horrendous start, they nearly lost another wicket only for Mitchell Marsh to drop a catch when Kohli was on 12.

Earlier, Australia had won the toss and decided to bat on a pitch that the experts believed would deteriorate the longer the match went on, making it harder to play on.

Australia started confidently and at one point had scored 110 runs for the loss of only two wickets before spinner Ravindra Jadeja bowled Steve Smith, who had made 46, with a great delivery to trigger a collapse.

They slipped to 119 for 5 and then 199 all out on a slow pitch in hot temperatures.

Jadeja, playing on his Indian Premier League home ground, proved unplayable and followed his dismissal of Smith with those of Marnus Labuschagne for 27 runs and Alex Carey for a duck a few balls later.

He finished with figures of three wickets for 28 runs and was supported by fellow slow bowlers Kuldeep Yadav, with 2-42, and Ravichandran Ashwin, 1-34, as well as seamer Jasprit Bumrah with 2-35.

"Yes, I was to be honest," Sharma admitted when asked if he was nervous after such a poor start.

"You don't want to start like that when chasing a target.

"Credit to Australia, but some loose shots there as well.

"But that happens, you want to get off the mark and score quickly in the powerplay.

"Hats off to Virat and KL - the way they stuck out there to create a match-winning partnership."

The fixture means that all 10 countries in the tournament have played their opening matches with New Zealand top of the robin round table having thrashed defending champions England by nine wickets in the first match.

New Zealand, the runners-up four years ago, are scheduled to play their second match tomorrow at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.

Their opponents will be The Netherlands, who lost by 81 runs in their first match against Pakistan.