🏏Australia vs India, 3rd Test: Brisbane, 14 - 18 Dec 2024, Day 5 🏏 - Page 4

India has won the toss and elected to bowl. Looks good in theory. Let us see how it pans out in reality.

Cheers..

Rohit Sharma: We're going to bowl first. Little bit overcast and little bit of grass, looks a bit soft as well, want to make best use of the conditions. Lot of cricket to be played, both teams have played good cricket in the last two games. 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.

Australia: 1 Usman Khawaja, 2 Nathan McSweeney, 3 Marnus Labuschagne, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Travis Head, 6 Mitchell Marsh, 7 Alex Carey (wk), 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Josh Hazlewood

India: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 KL Rahul, 3 Shubman Gill, 4 Virat Kohli, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Rohit Sharma (capt), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 9 Jasprit Bumrah, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Akash Deep,

Pat Cummins: We would've bowled first too. Been a fantastic series so far. Really happy with last week, just about everyone got into the series, been a good lead-up. Preperations have been pretty good. Early finish in Adelaide allowed us to come up here early and get settled. Just one change, Scott Boland is out for Hazlewood.

Ritik Bhardwaj: As much as we all know Harshit struggled in Adelaide, I still want the management to back him. He reminds me of a young Kohli—same passion and aggression. This pitch will suit him well too. 'He has been left out in favour of Akashdeep'

Bordia: "So team batting first has lost the last 7 games here? Why would it not be a bad toss to lose?" It was my mistake earlier Bordia, West Indies won the toss and batted here in January and won the game.

Prasanna S: "India doing musical chairs with their spinners - Washy, Ashwin, Jadeja in 3 tests. Feel they should have dropped Gill, play Rohit at 3, Reddy, Jadeja at 6, 7 and 4 frontline seamers. That would have made the eleven even more balanced."

Arif: "Cummins's answer to "what would you have done" for the toss decision - "one of those two".It shows, He is not happy that he lost the toss." No doubt he would have bowled, Arif.

Rishabh Pant: It's amazing, when I entered I got a positive feeling. It gives a positive attitude and confidence in a series where things are level, it makes you want to do well. Playing the situation has been a learning for me, bailing out the team from a hard situation. Sometimes it's hard, most of the time I need to keep telling myself to think positive. There are easy ways to do it but that's where I put my foot down and keep doing the same thing that has given me a lot of success. Generally I don't practice such shots, it's a game-plan according to the bowlers because it's not always easy to just defend the ball. My mindset tells me it's safer, I always play percentage cricket. Definitely it was one of the most challenging parts but I made sure with all the doctors that I could be fully fit, I always wanted to keep. The ball travels much more, that is something to look for. It does a bit off the wicket but that is part and parcel of the game.

Pitch report: "The overhead conditions are challenging, it's been wet going into the game. Cloudy conditions, there'll be plenty of assistance for the pacers, movement off the pitch, plenty of carry and batting shouldn't be easy. You need to respect the bowlers in the first two hours and then there are runs on this surface. Going further, spin will play a role going into the 4th and 5th days, it's a bowl first pitch," reckons Matthew Hayden and Sunil Gavaskar, in their pitch report.

Parth: What are the chances of rain throughout the 5 days? 'Chances of a thunderstorm or two over the course of the game, but we should get plenty of cricket'.

DYK: The last Indian captain to opt to field first in a Test in Australia before Rohit Sharma was Sourav Ganguly at the same venue in 2003. Overall the ninth such instance for India with four previous Tests ending in defeats and as many in draws.The last time a visiting side to win after opting to field first in Australia was South Africa in Hobart in 2016 while the last such instance in Brisbane came in 1985 by New Zealand.