India opt to bowl against Australia in 3rd Test

Australia’s captain Pat Cummins (C) tosses the coin with India’s captain Rohit Sharma (R) on the first day’s game of the third cricket Test match between Australia and India at The Gabba in Brisbane on December 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

India captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to field against Australia in the third Test on Saturday.

India have made a couple of changes with Harshit Rana and R Ashwin making way for Akash Deep and Ravindra Jadeja respectively.

For Australia, Josh Hazlewood, who has recovered from his side injury, returns to the playing XI in place of Scott Boland.

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“Little bit overcast and little bit of grass, looks a bit soft as well, want to make best use of the conditions. It will get better to bat as it goes on,” Rohit said at the toss.

“Big game for us here, we’ll do what is expected of us. We’ll play good cricket, we understand we have to capture some moments, we didn’t do that in the previous game which is why we lost,” he added.

The five-match series is locked in at 1-1.

Teams: Australia: Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins(c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Rohit Sharma(c), Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep.