The Indian Team Management has finally decided to let go of KL Rahul, who has been struggling with form over the last few months. The right-handed wicket-keeper batsman has been replaced by Shubman Gill at the top of the order.
All eyes were on Rohit Sharma as the Indian captain walked out for the toss. In the last 10 days or so, speculations have been flying around whether or not KL would make it into the playing 11 of the third test match between Australia and India. In three innings so far, KL has scores of 20, 17, and 1 respectively. Thus, it was only inevitable that the right-hander was replaced soon.
Rahul has been replaced by Shubman Gill, who seems to be having the time of his life at the batting crease. Another change that the Indian team has fielded is by replacing Mohammad Shami with Umesh Yadav in the name of workload management.
The Australian team has fielded a few changes as well. Mitchell Starc comes in for skipper Pat Cummins, who missed the test match due to family concerns whereas injured David Warner was replaced by all-rounder Cameron Green. Australia had already named Steve Smith as their stand-in captain in the absence of Pat Cummins.
Having won the toss, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma decided to bat first on what seemed like a pretty dry pitch and would benefit whomsoever batted first. India have already retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy as the hosts managed to win the first two test matches with much ease. However, if the Indian team wishes to cement its spot at the World Test Championship final, it needs to win one of the two remaining test matches.
India Playing 11: Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma (c), Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, KS Bharat (wk), R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj
Australia Playing 11: Usman Khawaja, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Matt Kuhnemann
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