India has revealed their playing XI for the Boxing Day Test against Australia, which starts on Saturday. The Ajinkya Rahane-led side has made four changes to the team that played in the pink-ball Test at the Adelaide Oval. Shubman Gill comes in for Prithvi Shaw, Ravindra Jadeja for Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant for Wriddhiman Saha and Mohammed Siraj for Mohammad Shami.
Maintaining the norms from the first Test when BCCI revealed the line-up a day before the Test, the Indian cricket board took to Twitter to reveal the line-up on Friday before Saturday's Test.
While there was a lot of talk about who should open with Mayank Agarwal for the second Test, given Prithvi Shaw's faulty batting technique came under the scanner, it seems Shubman will now open for the Test while KL Rahul was sidelined for the game.
Speaking of the team, Rahane said it was important to find a good opening pair for the Test as it will be crucial to get a good start in Virat Kohli's absence.
“See the opener’s role not only in Australia but everywhere is really crucial and I don’t want to put any pressure on our openers. Just want to give them freedom so that they can play their game,” said Rahane as quoted by ANI.
“Having said that as mentioned, openers’ role is very crucial when you get that partnership going it becomes really easy for the coming batsmen. We definitely miss Virat (Kohli), obviously when you have him it’s a great thing so we will definitely miss him as he is not there,” he added.
In another major change, it was Mohammed Siraj who will make his Test debut in place of injured Mohammed Shami, who is sidelined for the remainder of the series. With Shami out, the battle for the spot was between Siraj and Navdeep Saini. However, it seems, Saini's lackluster show in the warm-up games cost him the spot.
Meanwhile, Wriddhiman lost his wicket-keeping spot to Rishabh Pant, whose exclusion in the first Test after a blazing century in the warm-up game against Australia A raised a lot of eyebrows.
Team India XI: Mayank Agarwal, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, R. Ashwin and Mohd. Siraj.
More to follow...
