India Target Winning Start in Australia sojourn

Brisbane: Australia have the ideal opportunity to arrest their slide with some aggressive cricket in the three-match Twenty20 series against India, limited-overs captain Aaron Finch said in Brisbane on Tuesday.

They have not won an ODI series since beating New Zealand 2-0 in 2016-17 and finished the calendar year with only two wins from 13 matches.

In the shortest format, they were blanked 3-0 by Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates and also lost a one-off T20 match against the Proteas on Saturday.

India also cleansweep Aussies in last T20 series played in Australia in 2016-17.

India captain Virat Kohli scored four hundreds during the team's last trip Down Under but Finch said Australia would be foolish not to have plans against the touring side's other batsmen.

India's XII, named on the eve of the game, included three spin-bowling options. India opted to bench Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Washington Sundar and Umesh Yadav for the series opener.

Virat Kohli was back to leading the team after having skipped the T20I series against West Indies. Krunal Pandya, by virtue of his all-round skills, could get the nod in the XI at the expense of one of the wristspin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal. All three-man pace attack comprising Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Khaleel likely in XI.

Australia, who had opted for an all-seam attack in the first ever international game on the Gold Coast, might continue with the same template and bench legspinner Adam Zampa.

Teams

Australia (from): Aaron Finch (capt), Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Ben McDermott, Glenn Maxwell, D'Arcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye and Adam Zampa.

India (starting 12): Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Khaleel Ahmed, and Yuzvendra Chahal.

Pitch and condition
It is expected to be hot and humid on Wednesday. The traditionally bouncy wicket at the Gabba is expected to test the batsmen from both sides.

Stats and trivia

• Three of the top-ten scorers in T20s in 2018 - Finch (1295), Pant (1189) and Short (1099) - could be in action on Wednesday.
• Rohit Sharma (2207) needed 65 runs more to beome highest runs in T20I. Martin Guptill (2271) is top scores.

Match facts
Wednesday, 21 November 2018
Start time 19:00 local (09:00 GMT, 1430 IST)