Team India are all set to take on Australia as the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 gets underway at the Optus Stadium in Perth on November 22 (Friday). India are heading into the Test series opener without their designated captain Rohit Sharma. Rohit is still in India after the birth of his second child and will join the team before the start of the two-day pink-ball warm-up game against Prime Minister's XI.
In the absence of Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah will lead the side in Perth. Bumrah has led India in red-ball cricket once and being a senior player has enough experience to fill in for Rohit.
Notably, Optus Stadium is home to the fastest pitch in the entire of Australia and therefore the challenge for India will be to adapt to the pace and bounce of the venue. Australia have the upper hand over India in Perth as they have already tasted success against them at the Optus Stadium.
India have played only once at the Optus Stadium and lost that Test match by 146 runs against Australia during the 2018/19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, Virat Kohli who was then the captain of the team, had scored a brilliant hundred (123 runs off 257 balls) in the Test and it allowed India to give the Aussies a tough time.
Chasing 287 to win the fixture, India folded for 140 and lost the fixture by 146 runs. Australia, on the other hand, have played four games at the venue and have won all of them.
India’s squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy:
Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Devdutt Padikkal.
Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed.
Australia squad for 1st Test of Border-Gavaskar Trophy vs India
Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc
