The selection of the playing XI will be an interesting aspect to watch out for when India take on Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 on Thursday. Nagpur’s VCA Stadium is set to host the series opener and the talks about the line-ups of both sides have started taking centre stage. Both India and Australia have thoroughly inspected the track and have locked their respective XIs. However, the same will be announced after the toss on Thursday.
It will be interesting to see which player gets to open alongside skipper Rohit Sharma. The toss-up is between Shubman Gill & KL Rahul; the former has been in great form lately and enters the series with multiple centuries in white-ball format. Whereas Rahul has been with the team for quite a long time now and returns to the squad after a short break.
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At the same time, the management needs to fill the void created due to Shreyas Iyer’s unavailability. If Rahul gets named in the top-order, Gill might miss the chance because in-form Suryakumar Yadav is already in the fray, awaiting his Test debut.
Speaking about the team selection at the pre-match presser on Thursday, Rohit admitted that the process is going to be tough, adding that a decision is yet to be taken that who among Gill and Surya will make the cut.
“Shubman has been in supreme form, a lot of big hundreds, on the other hand, SKY has shown what he brings to the range, but we have not decided whom we will go with,” said Rohit Sharma.
Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant’s absence will also play a great impact on the series. The young wicketkeeper-batter was one of the architects of India’s victory in the 2020-21 series Down Under. He is currently recovering from injuries suffered in a gruesome car accident on December 30, 2022.
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Speaking about missing Rishabh in the series, Rohit said, “We will miss Rishabh Pant but we have guys to fill his role. We have had a good talk with the batters about their plans and hopefully, we will execute them from tomorrow onwards.”
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