India captain Rohit Sharma admitted that he would have opted to bat first if he had won the toss on Thursday. Pat Cummins won the toss and Australia opted to bat first on Day one of the first Test.
New Delhi,UPDATED: Feb 9, 2023 09:28 IST
Rohit admitted that he would have opted to bat as well if he won the toss (Courtesy: AP)
By India Today Web Desk: India captain Rohit Sharma admitted that he would have also batted first after losing the toss to Pat Cummins on Thursday on Day one of the first Test in Nagpur.
Cummins won the toss and elected to bat first in a high-stakes series that could potentially determine the finalists of the World Test Championship summit clash at the Oval on 7-11 June.
Speaking at the toss, as quoted by Cricbuzz, Sharma said that he would have opted to bat first as well if he had won the toss. The India captain said that he did see some seam movement for the pacers up front during training.
Sharma opened up on the importance of the series and said while it is a big one, it is all about winning one session at a time.
“We would have batted too. Looks pretty dry. There will be help for spinners. We got to wait and see how much it does. Yesterday when we started training we did see some seam movement for the pacers up front. We have had a good prep for the last 5-6 days. We trained on the aspects in store. This is a big one. We know the importance of the series but we also understand it’s about winning one session at a time. It’s a long series. Three spinners, two seamers, Bharat and Suryakumar Yadav are debuting,” said Sharma.
India handed debuts to Suryakumar Yadav and KS Bharat with Ravindra Jadeja also returning to the lineup. Shubman Gill and Kuldeep Yadav missed out from the playing XI.
Australia (Playing XI): David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Matt Renshaw, Peter Handscomb, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins(c), Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Scott Boland
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Srikar Bharat(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj
