Pat Cummins: It's always good to have a fresh start. Pink ball can be a little bit different. It's been a really good preparation. It's pretty muggy today.
Rohit Sharma: We are going to bat first. Looks a good pitch, looks a bit dry at the moment, enough grass covering as well. There will be something in it for everyone. I have been here for two weeks now. Ready to go now.
India have won the toss and have opted to bat
Pitch Report | Sunil Gavaskar and Matthew Hayden: Over the last few days, a lot of grass has been taken off. There's still a fair amount of grass there - 6mm of grass - which will mean the new ball bowlers will have plenty of help at the start while the ball is hard and new. It could actually seam around quite a lot. Pretty good conditions for day one ans two. Averages then go down.
Rohit Sharma confirmed yesterday that the opening pair won't be disturbed which means the Indian captain will be batting 'somewhere in the middle' for the first time since December 2018.
13:30 Local Time, 03:00 GMT, 08:30 IST:
Although they conceded 487/6 in the second innings, Cummins and Co. will be pretty confident that the bowlers will deliver the goods. The new pink ball tends to move more than the new red ball and batting under lights isn't straightforward by any means. Australia have lost only just one D/N Test, earlier this year against West Indies, and have a 100% win record at the Adelaide Oval in pink-ball encounters (winning 7 out of 7). The last time these two teams faced off against each other in a day-night Test, Cummins and Hazlewood exhibited a masterclass in seam bowling at the Adelaide Oval to bowl out India for 36. While there's no Hazlewood for this duel, Boland can be equally lethal with his accuracy.
Australia have won 9 of their last 16 Test series, drawn 4 and lost 3. Interestingly, all the three series losses have come against India! Following their heavy 295-run defeat in Perth, they decided not to make any radical changes to their line-up. In fact, they have already announced their XI with Scott Boland coming in for injured Josh Hazlewood being the only forced change. Their batting didn't fire in the opening Test. Twin failures for Khawaja, young McSweeney trapped by Bumrah on both occasions, Labuschagne unable to soak in the pressure and Smith looked streaky after bagging a golden duck in the first essay. Travis Head and Mitch Marsh counterattacked in the final innings but that only helped in reducing the margin of defeat. Can they step up?
13:15 Local Time, 02:45 GMT, 08:15 IST:
Australia (Playing XI): Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins(c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland
Squads:
India Squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma(c), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant(w), Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Nitish Reddy, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Sarfaraz Khan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep
Australia Squad: Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins(c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland, Beau Webster, Josh Inglis, Brendan Doggett, Sean Abbott
India
Australia
