IND vs AUS 2022-23, 4th Test: PM Modi's cricket diplomacy with Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese
By Team Newsable | First Published Mar 9, 2023, 9:34 AM ISTIND vs AUS 2022-23: India and Australia are locking horns in the final Ahmedabad Test on Thursday. To mark the 75th year of Indo-Aus friendship through cricket, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese delighted the Ahmedabad crowd.
The stage is set for another exciting Test cricket. India and Australia clash in the fourth and final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. While the hosts lead 2-1 in the series, with the visitors having bounced back in the last Test in Indore, the former cannot be considered the outright favourites here.
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Meanwhile, the occasion is also momentous as the two nations celebrate their 75th year of friendship through cricketing relations. On the same note, the Prime Ministers of two countries, Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese are at the venue to mark the occurrence. They gave away the Test caps to the two captains before taking a lap of honour across the venue.
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In the meantime, the Australians won the coin toss and opted to bat first, as they moved in with the same playing XI. As for the Indians, they made a change by bringing senior seamer Mohammed Shami for pacer Mohammed Siraj. The track has an even amount of grass and a few dry patches, with the spinners again likely to appear as the game progresses.
After winning the toss, Australian skipper Steven Smith said, "We will have a bat, playing with the same team. It looks like a nice surface and does look like a good wicket. The guys performed well last week. We'll wait and see [whether he will lead Australia in India again]."
On the other hand, Indian captain Rohit Sharma remarked, "We would have batted first. We know what needs to be done. Siraj is rested, and Shami is back. It's always nice to have some time off. We need to regroup as a team. You can reflect on so many things. Not the surface of what we saw in the first three Tests. It looks like a good pitch. I hope it stays the same for all five days."
Playing XI
IND: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav.
AUS: Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith (c), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Mitchell Starc, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann and Nathan Lyon.
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