Toss India won the toss and opted to field vs Australia

India won the toss and asked Australia to bat in the first of three ODIs, being played in Mohali.

KL Rahul, India’s captain for the series, called Mohali “historically a good chasing ground” when explaining his decision to field first. His counterpart, Pat Cummins, said he would have bowled too. He announced that batter Matthew Short would be making his debut.

Both sides are juggling preparation for the World Cup – it begins in less than two weeks’ time – and rotation of players, with injuries in their ranks not making things easy. While India have rested Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya for the first two matches of the series, they have Shreyas Iyer returning after a back spasm forced him to miss four of India’s Asia Cup matches.

India also picked R Ashwin, who last played an ODI in January 2022, over Washington Sundar for the game, while also slotting in Ruturaj Gaikwad as opener alongside Shubman Gill.

Australia, on the other hand, have captain Cummins back in action – his previous ODI had come in November last year. He has led Australia only twice since being named their captain in the format. They are without Mitchell Starc, Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell and Ashton Agar for the game, and opted to rest Alex Carey.

The last ODI in Mohali had also been between India and Australia. Back then, in 2019, Australia had hunted down 359, still their highest successful chase in the format.

India: 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Shreyas Iyer, 4 KL Rahul (capt, wk), 5 Suryakumar Yadav, 6 Ishan Kishan, 7, Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 R Ashwin, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Jasprit Bumrah

Australia: 1 David Warner, 2 Mitchell Marsh, 3 Steven Smith, 4 Marnus Labuschagne, 5 Cameron Green, 6 Josh Inglis (wk), 7 Marcus Stoinis, 8 Matthew Short, 9 Pat Cummins (capt), 10 Sean Abbott, 11 Adam Zampa