Toss India chose to bowl vs Australia
Just four days after they contested the World Cup final, both teams face the difficult task of having to front up for the five-match series.
Australia made a number of changes to spark what might be a sluggish team trying to shake out of partying mode.
There was much intrigue over whether Travis Head, who was the player of the final after his century, would play having celebrated mightily with his revelry amusingly captured on social media.
But he unsurprisingly was left out from the XI, as were World Cup-winning team-mates Glenn Maxwell and Adam Zampa. Steven Smith will open having successfully batted at the top for Sydney Sixers in last season’s BBL, while Josh Inglis will play as a specialist batter at No.3.
India have almost a completely different team from the World Cup with Suryakumar their only player who is backing up from the final. He will captain India for the first time in place of injured T20 skipper Hardik Pandya.
Ishan Kishan will take the gloves, while left-arm spinner Axar Patel returns.
The series might seem shoehorned into cricket’s congested calendar, but for both teams it effectively starts their preparations for next year’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and the USA.
The surface is expected to be hard and good for batting amid humid conditions.
India: 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 2 Suryakumar Yadav (capt), 3 Yashasvi Jaiswal 4 Ishan Kishan (wk), 5 Tilak Varma, 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Ravi Bishnoi, 9 Arshdeep Singh, 10 Mukesh Kumar, 11 Prasidh Krishna
Australia: 1 Steven Smith, 2 Matthew Short, 3 Josh Inglis 4 Aaron Hardie, 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Tim David, 7 Matthew Wade (capt, wk), 8 Sean Abbott, 9 Nathan Ellis, 10 Jason Behrendorff, 11 Tanveer Sangha
