Four days after the ICC Men’s ODI Cricket World Cup final between India and Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday (November 19), a new-look India side will be against a similar Australian unit in the first of the five-match T20I series at the Dr Y.S.Rajashekar Reddy ACA-VDCA International Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Thursday. The pains of the heartbreak that India suffered in the night of the final still lingers on but it’s time move on and keep the next year’s T20 World Cup in mind.
While India have named Suryakumar Yadav as the captain for the side in this sides, it will be Matthew Wade that will lead Australia in this series. Wade has already hinted that hero of the ODI World Cup final Travis Head might not feature in this Playing 11 which suggests that Mathew Short could open with Steven Smith. Wade will be the one behind the stumps with Inglis likely to be slotted in solely as the batter.
“Keeping the T20 World Cup in mind, the games we are going to play till then are very important. My message to them [younger players] is very clear: be fearless and do whatever it takes to help the team. And they have been doing that in the IPL; they have played a lot domestic cricket as well recently. So they are in a good nick, which I have heard from our support staff,” Suryakumar said at the pre-match press-conference.
“Traditionally, the pitches are very, very good for batting over here. In the West Indies, they tend to slow up and take a little bit of spin. So any opportunity we get on a slowish wicket with a bit of spin is an opportunity for someone to put their hand up and show what they can do,” Wade said at a media conference conference before the match.
Probable Playing XIs:
India: Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel/Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna/Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar
Australia: Steven Smith, Matthew Short, Aaron Hardie, Josh Inglis, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Matthew Wade (captain, wicketkeeper), Sean Abbott, Nathan Ellis, Jason Behrendorff, Tanveer Sangha