Star batter KL Rahul, who was recently sacked as India's vice-captain in Tests, has been dropped from India's Playing XI for Ind vs Aus 3rd Test of four-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy, being played at Indore's iconic Holkar stadium. Since the start of 2022, Rahul has scored just one half-century in Tests. So far, he has scored just 38 runs in the first Two tests of Ind vs Aus Test series 2023. In his last 7 Test innings, the middle-order batter came up with scores of 22, 23, 10,2, 20, 17 and 1. Rahul averages 33.44 after 47 Tests.


Shubman Gill, who replaced Rahul in India XI for Indore Test, is in sublime form. The youngster is among few Indian batters who have scored tons across formats (Test, ODI, T20I). In 13 Tests, Gill has so far scored 736 runs with one ton and 4 fifties.


India captain Rohit Sharma, while announcing changes in India XI for Indore Test, said Mohammed Shami was rested for Umesh Yadav's inclusion and Shubman Gill comes 'in place of' Rahul.


"We will have a bat first. It is a pretty good dressing room and like you said the morale is high. The guys are confident about their skills which is a good thing moving forward. We have played a lot of cricket (here) but this one (surface) is slightly different. Looks little dry and you have to adapt your skills and be at it all the time. We are there yet (WTC final) and we have to come and win this game, we have to try and repeat the things we did in the first two Tests. It is important to stay present. We have made two changes - Gill comes in place of KL. We have rested Shami and Umesh comes in," Rohit said.


India are 2-0 up in four-match Test series and will need to produce at least a 3-0 or 3-1 win against Australia to reach World Test Championship (WTC) 2023 Final


India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Srikar Bharat(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj


Australia (Playing XI): Usman Khawaja, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith(c), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey(w), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann