Ending all the speculations at once, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma on Wednesday morning confirmed that in-form Shubman Gill will be replacing a struggling KL Rahul as the second opener in the third Test. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 has arrived in Indore where the hosts will look to stretch their dominance and root for a 3-0 lead to get the ticket to World Test Championship finale. The Australians, on the other hand, will look to revive themselves under Steve Smith as Pat Cummins isn’t available at the moment.
India vs Australia Live Cricket Score, 3rd Test Day 1
Meanwhile, Rohit won the toss at the Holkar Stadium and opted to bat first. Apart from Gill replacing Rahul, the hosts have another change to the line-up. Umesh Yadav has come into the mix and Mohammad Shami has been rested for the game.
“We will have a bat first. It is a pretty good dressing room and like you said the morale is high. The guys are confident about their skills which is a good thing moving forward. We have played a lot of cricket (here) but this one (surface) is slightly different. Looks little dry and you have to adapt your skills and be at it all the time. We are there yet (WTC final) and we have to come and win this game, we have to try and repeat the things we did in the first two Tests. It is important to stay present,” Rohit said after winning the toss.
Stand-in skipper Steve Smith said Australia have also made a couple of changes to their playing XI. Fast bowler Mitchell Starc has been named in the line-up while Cameron Green coming place of David Warner.
“Looks pretty dry and no surprises Rohit decided to bat first. Hopefully we can execute our skills early and out the Indian batters under pressure. It (break) came in at a good time for us, obviously disappointing how we ended the last Test match and the guys have had time to reflect, rest and get back into preparation. Just stick to our methods for longer periods, we went away from it especially in the second innings in the last game. We are thinking about Patty, his mum’s unwell and he has had to go home,” said Steve Smith.
Here are the playing XIs:
India: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Srikar Bharat(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.
Australia: Usman Khawaja, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith(c), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey(w), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann.
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