IND vs AUS: Team warmups moved outside the stadium due to PM pageantry in Ahmedabad
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed Rohit Sharma his Test cap while Anthony Albanese, his Australian counterpart handed the Baggy Green to Steve Smith.
Ahead of Day 1 of the fourth Test in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, both the home and away teams were asked to train outside the stadium to accommodate the first meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.
Players were allowed to get a look at the pitch earlier but after that, were not allowed to enter the turf area. The cricketers were rather training outside the stadium in Ahmedabad. Meanwhile, both Prime Ministers were seen presenting the Test caps to their respective skippers. While Narendra Modi presented it to Rohit Sharma, Anthony Albanese handed the Baggy Green to Steve Smith. Soon after that, BCCI president Roger Binny felicitated the Australian Prime Minister while BCCI secretary Jay Shah felicitated Shri Narendra Modi.
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245Later, it was followed by some traditional music and dance and it was followed by the Prime Ministers having a lap of honour across the ground to celebrate 75 years of friendship between India and Australia.
Australia have won the toss and opted to bat first
In the absence of regular skipper Pat Cummins, Steve Smith is once again leading the Australian side and has managed to win the toss and decided to bat first. He has named an unchanged XI while the Indian team has decided to bench Mohammed Siraj and bring back Mohammed Shami into the mix.
Meanwhile at the toss, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma expressed that he too would have batted first given the conditions. The opener also added that they need to regroup and reflect on many things to return back to winning ways.
On the other hand, there were a lot of speculations that India will introduce Ishan Kishan for the final Test but Rohit Sharma and the team management kept their faith in KS Bharat, who has been brilliant behind the stumps so far.
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Srikar Bharat (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav
Australia Playing XI: Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith (c), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Mitchell Starc, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann, Nathan Lyon
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