After the high of Perth, the Indian team will be back on the field to get themselves acclimatised to day-night Test cricket with the pink ball after more than three years and over four years in Australia. The horrors of Adelaide 2020 are as fresh as raw wounds and India would certainly want to wipe that out of the memory. A 1-0 lead helps but since every match is vital in the World Test Championship (WTC) context, India can't afford to take the foot off the gas.
The focus will be on the batters to get as much practice playing the pink ball, which moves a bit more than the red cherry and bat a bit more under lights as the final session can get difficult for the batters. The returns improved for the Indian batting but the spotlight will be on skipper Rohit Sharma and No 3 batter Shubman Gill. Rohit is set to return after missing the opener while there are question marks over Gill's participation as he is coming off the thumb injury he suffered during fielding practice before the Perth Test.
Since it's only two days, it's sort of an elongated one-day and India will hope to get the best out of it ahead of the next week's clash because mind you, Australia will be hurting after losing and hence, dangerous.
When and where to watch PMXI vs IND practice match on TV and OTT in India?
The two-day pink-ball practice match will kick off at 9 AM IST on Saturday, November 30 at the Manuka Oval in Canberra. The official broadcaster for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Star Sports will telecast the match on November 30 and Sunday, December 1. The match will be live on TV as well as on streaming on the Disney+ Hotstar app and website.
Squads
Prime Minister's XI: Jack Edwards (c), Charlie Anderson, Mahli Beardman, Scott Boland, Jack Clayton, Aidan O'Connor, Ollie Davies, Jayden Goodwin, Sam Harper, Hanno Jacobs, Sam Konstas, Lloyd Pope, Matthew Renshaw, Jem Ryan
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.
