India vs Australia: 5 Players to watch out for in the ODI series

India’s T20 segment of the current home season is finished. We witnessed total dominance of Virat Kohli’s army throughout the season in each format. However, the challenge is bigger now, against a quality side – Australia. The visitors have sent their full-strength squad to compete hard against India. This bilateral ODI series is Australia’s first since the World Cup 2019.

The hosts are also ready with their full-strength squad, however, Hardik Pandya is still unavailable. In 2019, the Men in Blue lost the five-match ODI series against the same opponent. Australia were without David Warner, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood in that series. The return of these players makes the kangaroos even more dangerous.

The three-match ODI series between the two top-class sides will be a mouth-watering contest. Both the teams are capable of winning the series, and predicting the scoreline is a tough task. The playing eleven of both the teams are more or less settled.

In this article, we have featured five players to watch out for in this series:

1. Rishabh Pant

The young batsman Rishabh Pant is always in the spotlight whenever India play a match. Since he is seen as MS Dhoni‘s successor, it is quite obvious. Pant is yet to set the stage on fire at the international level as far as the white-ball cricket is concerned. Anyway, there is no question about his potential and skill set.

It isn’t easy to bat in the middle-order in the white-ball format. A middle-order batsman should be adaptable with the match situation, demands to be equally good against pacers and spinners. Being a left-hander, he has an advantage to milk leg-spinners. He can plunder bowlers in the death overs because of his brute power and range of shots.

The wicketkeeper-batsman showed signs of improvement in the series against the West Indies. He took his time, the shot-selection was good and Pant executed them well. Averaging exactly 39, Pant scored 117 runs at a staggering strike rate of over 128 in India’s previous ODI leg. A good time in this series will help Pant in securing his spot in the team for the future.