Captain Mitchell Marsh won the crucial toss as Australia elected to bowl first against India in their last Super 8 match of the T20 World Cup 2024 in St Lucia on Monday, June 24. As expected Mitchell Starc came into Australia playing eleven while India remained unchanged.
In the potential battle for the semifinal, Australia dropped their spin all-rounder Ashton Agar to make way for Starc. The left-arm pacer missed out on Australia's last game against Afghanistan but returned for a must-win game against the Men in Blue.
"We are going to bowl first," Marsh said after winning the toss. "Looks a belter, it looks lovely. It's a quarte final, looking forward to it, big challenge against India. We have had ourselves in this situation before, every game is a must-win now. We got an experienced group, a great staff. Starc comes in for Agar."
India kept the faith in the same eleven that recorded comfortable wins against Afghanistan and Bangladesh in their first two Super 8 games. Kuldeep Yadav started ahead of Mohammed Siraj once again after taking three wickets for 19 against Bangladesh in the last game.
"We would have fielded first as well, looks a bit sticky," Rohit said. "We wanted to chase. We know what exactly we are doing, will try to do our best. I hope it doesn't change much. The overhead conditions also matter in this part of the world. We have adapted well, hopefully another game where we put up a show. Every game matters in this tournament, nothing changes. We are playing the same team."
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah.
Australia Playing XI: Travis Head, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh (c), Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Matthew Wade (wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood.
