Key events
Both teams have selected quite flexible XIs, with a lot of bowling options. It will be interesting to see how many bowlers are used – especially as it is reportedly extremely hot and humid at the ground. Perhaps we will see rotations more like we’re used to in women’s cricket, where there are all-rounders aplenty. Lots of things to look out for, but the national anthems are happening, so it’s nearly time to get started.
These two teams have been pretty evenly matched over the past few years – they have played 23 games since 2017 and Australia leads that tally 13-10, so there’s not much in it.
It seems like Sean Abbott’s race against the clock was a successful one, with Abbott beating the clock by a considerable margin to be fit for today’s game after picking up some split webbing in the previous series. Matthew Short makes his ODI debut today after making his T20I debut in South Africa last month.
India XI
Shubnam Gill
Ruturaj Gaikwad
Sheryas Iyer
KL Rahul (c / wk)
Ishan Kishan
Suryakumar Yadav
Ravindra Jadeja
R Ashwin
Shardul Thakur
Jasprit Bumrah
Mohd Shami
12th: Tilak Varma
Australia XI
David Warner
Mitch Marsh
Steve Smith
Marnus Labuschagne
Cameron Green
Josh Inglis (wk)
Marcus Stoinis
Matthew Short
Pat Cummins (c)
Sean Abbott
Adam Zampa
12th: Aaron Hardie
India win the toss and bowl
Captain Rahul has won the toss and decided to bowl first at the IS Bindra Cricket Stadium.
We’ll get the team lists soon when the toss happens, but for now, let’s talk about form. India obviously comes into this game in scintillating form from the Asian Cup. They only lost one game in that tournament, which was one in which they rested some stars as the result didn’t matter for their campaign. They have played 18 ODIs so far this year, which I think we can all agree is a lot of ODIs – cricket’s weirdest format.
Australia on the other hand, has just come off that series in South Africa. In it, as my dad would say, they started like a house on fire and then burnt down. They have dropped to third in the ODI rankings, having been overtaken by none other than India. They lost the last three games on the trot and will be hoping to bounce back hard and find some form in this series. The squad welcomes back Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins, which they will hope can provide the spark they need, especially after the loss of Travis Head, Sean Abbott and Nathan Ellis to injury – all three are racing the clock to return for the World Cup.
Preamble
Megan Maurice
Hello and welcome to this delightful little ODI series, getting us all ready for the World Cup. With the weather in this part of the world really heating up lately it seems like the perfect time for cricket – I hope you’ve got some cricket appropriate weather where you are too.
Australia are preparing for their opening World Cup match against India by playing against India, which seems like ideal preparation in all honesty. In fact, in the next 16 days they will play India four times, so they will hopefully have the hang of it by the time they get to the end of that.
India are resting a few of their star players for the first two games of this series, so it won’t be a full strength side we see just yet, while Australia has some injury concerns coming off the series against South Africa. We’ll dig into both teams in just a minute.
Hopefully we’ve got ourselves a thrilling series coming up, so strap yourselves in and get ready for game one!
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