IND vs AUS 1st ODI: Australia wins toss, elects to bat against India in Hyderabad

Following a 0-2 series loss in T20 Internationals against Australia, Virat Kohli and Co. are slowly moving into the World Cup mode as India’s dress-rehearsal for the 2019 mega event begins in Hyderabad today

Following a 0-2 series loss in T20 Internationals against Australia, Virat Kohli and Co. are slowly moving into the World Cup mode as India’s dress-rehearsal for the 2019 mega event begins in Hyderabad today. Now, India have 5 games left to get their balance right.

Australia captain Aaron Finch won the toss and elected to bat against India in the first ODI of the five-match series.

As witnessed during the recent IPL seasons, the Hyderabad pitch has a history of providing benefit to the bowlers, and has traditionally been on the slower side.

Western Australia lad Ashton Tuner makes his ODI debut for Australia, while Alex Carey comes in as Jhye Richardson misses out. Skipper Aaron Finch will make his way out to the middle for his 100th ODI.

For India, Kohli decided to give Chahal a break today as Jadeja comes in. Rest India have the same combination of 2 fast bowlers. All-rounders Vijay Shankar and Ravindra Jadeja come in to provide the team a balance and give depth in batting. India’s top-order is same as they played in New Zealand.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli said,” We would have bowled first. We have done well chasing a lot in ODIs. And we wanted to back our strengths. This surface is going to be hard and it will be good to bat on. We want to continue what we did in New Zealand and Australia. Our intensity was top-notch and that's exactly we need here. A couple of things we need to work on in our middle-order. We want to up the scoring rate more in the middle overs. We are pretty balanced as a side.”

"We will bat first. It looks like a dry wicket. Hopefully, we can post a big score. We want to keep improving all the time. We have made good ground in ODIs in the last 4-5 months. We have made very good progress. Alex Carey comes in our team, Jhye Richardson misses out," said Aussie skipper.

Australia win the toss and elect to bat first in the 1st ODI#INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/ckaIX91MAO

— BCCI (@BCCI) March 2, 2019

Australia won the two-match Twenty20 International series and now with about 10 one-day internationals to go before they play in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, ODIs against India and Pakistan will provide "a great opportunity to keep improving"  and decide on combinations.

India XI: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (c), Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (wk), Vijay Shankar, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Japsrit Bumrah

Australia XI: Aaron Finch (c), Usman Khawaja, Marcus Stoinis, Peter Handscomb, Glenn Maxwell, Ashton Turner, Alex Carey (wk), Nathan Coulter-Nile, Pat Cummins, Jason Behrendorff, Adam Zampa