India hope to bounce back against resurgent Australia in a swashbuckling series finale

After an intense exchange of the willow and the leather in the first three encounters of the series, it has now boiled down to what seems like the final battle that will decide the fate of the WTC finale for India as a win is a necessity and anything less than the aforementioned upshot is going to spark a huge firestorm of vitriol.

India will be coming to this fixture on the back of a staggering defeat against Australia in the third Test where their batters crumbled to the spin of Nathan Lyon, who knitted together a web of mystery around the hosts as the Indian batters could barely contest at Indore.

With all said and done, India may opt for a few changes and it will be interesting to see what is the possible course of action that the hosts resort to. Kuldeep Yadav could get a look-in, or India could also consider slotting into KL Rahul, with the middle order looking very shaky. 

Australia will be high on confidence as they will try and push the momentum forward from the third Test, particularly the one that has been spun into existence by the triptych of Lyon, Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann. The return of Mitchell Starc also assured that India face the best bowling options which will force them to be on their toes if they are to have any chances of getting back in the hunt of the series without the spoils shared.

Venue Watch:

A total of 14 Test matches have been played at this juncture and as things stand, the results are pretty evenly poised with 4 games having been won batting first while another 4 were secured while chasing. The remainder of the games ended in a draw. The average first innings score has been 338 while the average score in the second is 337. The numbers exhibit a sharp slump as it reads 236 in the third innings while showing 147 in the fourth. Hence, if you are winning the toss, opt to bat.

Head-to-head:

Matches played: 105

India: 32

Australia: 44

Match Details:

India vs Australia

Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad

9th March, 2023

9:30 AM IST

Squads:

India:

Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat, Ishan Kishan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer

Australia:

Steve Smith (C), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner