Hyderabad: The Indian cricket team will continue its experiments to figure out the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle called the ‘World Cup squad’ when a five-match ODI series against Australia starts here Saturday.
The team is slowly moving into the World Cup mode and even a 0-2 loss in the T20 series won’t see any shift in plans as far as skipper Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri are concerned.
“Every team will look to fine-tune whatever they need to before the World Cup, and we’ll keep doing that in the ODI series too, but we still want to win every match we play,” said Kohli.
There will be at least four players for whom the series will be like a ‘pre test’, a good score ensuring that they get ‘admit cards’ for the board exams.
One man who will be keenly tracking the developments from the sidelines will be Dinesh Karthik, who still, many believe, has an outside chance of making it to the team.
However, for the quartet of KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Vijay Shankar and Siddharth Kaul, the coming five matches will be an acid test as and when they are inducted into the playing XI.
But Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri are not likely to tinker with the core team too much as a comprehensive series win is always an acceptable proposition.
With the seasoned Ambati Rayudu, veteran all-rounder Kedar Jadhav and the wily Mohammed Shami back in the Indian set-up, the ODI series will be a completely different challenge for Aaron Finch and his men.
Also the formidable wrist spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal will be operating in tandem during those middle overs to choke the run flow.
Bumrah, set to be India’s premier bowler in England, may be rested for a game or two depending on India’s position in the series.
The Australian team, buoyed by the maiden T20 triumph over India, will be eager to continue the momentum it has gained.
Nathan Lyon’s presence will lend teeth to the spin department and he will partner Adam Zampa.
Andrew Tye, the late replacement for the injured Kane Richardson, will like to use all the variations learnt during his stints with various IPL franchises.
PTI
