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After defeating Australia by six wickets in the second Test in Delhi, India will be looking to seal the series in the third Test at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore starting from March 1.
India has already retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four-match series.
With a ten-day gap before the start of the third Test in Indore, Australia skipper Pat Cummins immediately returned home for family health reasons. On the other hand, opener David Warner and pacer Josh Hazlewood has been ruled out of the remaining two Tests due to injuries and has already returned to Australia.
With Cummins leaving home due to family health reasons, Steven Smith is set to lead the Australian side in the third Test in Indore, where they will look to turn things around for them after disappointing losses in the first two games.
Meanwhile, left-arm spinner Ashton Agar has been sent back home to play in Sheffield Shield and Marsh Cup for his domestic side Western Australia after missing the first two Tests against India. However, there are no further inclusions made in Australia’s Test squad ahead of the third Test.
With all-rounder Cameron Green and left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc all set to make their comebacks after injuries, Australia will be looking to restrict India under 300 to show some fight. As far as batting is concerned, the Australian team will be dependent on batters like Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labhuschagne, Smith and Peter Handscomb, who have shown some promise with the bat in this series.
India will be looking to seal their spot in the World Test Championship (WTC) final by winning the third Test and also the series, while Australia will be looking to bounce back in the series with fresh ideas from new captain Steven Smith.
For India to qualify for the WTC final, they have to just win one more game from the remaining two Tests. However, India can still fail to qualify if they don’t win the last two Tests and Sri Lanka manages to beat New Zealand 2-0. Similarly for Australia, they will lose out on the opportunity to play the final if they lose 4-0 against India and Sri Lanka win 2-0.
Recent form (Last five matches, most recent first):
India WWWWL
Australia LLDWW
Pitch conditions:
The pitch in Indore looks like just another Indian pitch which is going to help the spinners. There’s a touch of grass in the middle of the pitch with dry and bald areas on both sides around the six-metre mark. The weather is expected to be pleasant during the morning, while the afternoon temperature might stay in the early 30 degrees celsius.
The only two Test matches hosted in Indore till now have been won by India. In the first-ever Test played here in 2016, India defeated New Zealand by a big margin of 321 runs, while the second Test was won by India by an inning and 130 runs against Bangladesh in 2019.
Probable XI:
As far as India is concerned, the only change they can look to make in the third Test might be the inclusion of in-form opener Shubman Gill in place of KL Rahul, who has been dropped from the vice-captaincy after the second Test.
Rahul has scored 125 runs from his last 10 Test innings, scoring 1, 17, 20, 2, 10, 23, 22, 10, 12 and 8. He averages just 12.5 from his previous 10 innings, with the highest score of 23.
On the other hand, Gill has been in terrific form recently, scoring three centuries and one double-century from his last seven white-ball games. He also scored a century in the first Test against Bangladesh at Chattogram in December last year with a magnificent 110 off 152 balls.
India (Probable XI): 1. Rohit Sharma (Captain), 2. Shubman Gill, 3. Cheteshwar Pujara, 4. Virat Kohli, 5. Shreyas Iyer, 6. Ravindra Jadeja, 7. KS Bharat (WK), 8. R Ashwin, 9. Axar Patel, 10. Mohammed Shami, 11. Mohammed Siraj.
For Australia, there are some good news with Green and Starc all set to play the third Test in Indore after missing the first two games due to their respective finger injuries.
Australia are likely to play Starc in place of Cummins and Green in place of Matthew Renshaw. They are expected to go with a bowling combination of three spinners in Nathon Lyon, Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann, along with one pacer in Starc and one all-rounder in Green.
Australia (Probable XI): 1. Usman Khawaja, 2. Travis Head, 3. Marnus Labuschagne, 4. Steven Smith (Captain), 5. Peter Handscomb, 6. Alex Carey (WK), 7. Cameron Green, 8. Mitchell Starc, 9. Nathon Lyon, 10. Todd Murphy, 11. Matthew Kuhnemann.
Some interesting facts:
- Australia have lost 32 out of their 40 wickets so far against spin in this series.
- India’s last hundred-run opening partnership was way back in December 2021 in Centurion where KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal added 117 runs for the first wicket.
- Australia’s left-handed batters have scored 242 runs in this series at an average of 11.52 with 21 dismissals, while India’s left-handed batters have scored 254 at an average of 63.50 with four dismissals.
- Nathan Lyon (126) needs just two more wickets to become the overseas bowler with the most Test wickets in Asia after legendary Shane Warne (127).
- Axar Patel (48) needs two more wickets to complete 50 wickets in Test cricket. Interestingly, he’s bowled only 26 overs in the series so far, compared to 67.1 and 64.5 for Jadeja and Ashwin.
Player statements:
“It can happen to us as well, not just them. I was talking to Rahul [Dravid] bhai the other day, and I said, in Nagpur I played close to 200 balls, and I never felt that I was set, because when you’re playing on pitches like that, it just takes one ball to probably grip a little more than you expect, or just one ball to keep low, and you’re out. On pitches like this, you’re never in, and it’s the same for us as well. What happened to them can happen to us as well,” said India skipper Rohit Sharma.
“We probably just rushed things a little bit [in Delhi] and it’s something we’ll talk about tomorrow when we meet. When we’ve got them on the ropes, we can slow things down. We don’t have to play at such a high tempo and risky tempo. Because we had them where we wanted them, we had men out and the ability to get off strike. We just rushed it,” said Australia captain Steven Smith.
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