As he walked out for the toss along with Australia skipper Pat Cummins in Chennai on Sunday afternoon, Rohit Sharma became India's oldest captain in ODI World Cup cricket. Rohit, who as on Sunday is 36 years and 161 days old, overtook former India skipper Mohammad Azharuddin, who captained the national cricket team in the 1999 50-over World Cup at the age of 36 years and 124 days. The list also features India head coach Rahul Dravid (captained in the 2007 World Cup at the age of 34 years, 71 days), S Venkataraghavan (34 years and 56 days, 1979 World Cup) and MS Dhoni (33 years and 262 days, 2015 World Cup). (Scorecard | Match Blog | Streaming)
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In the India vs Australia match on Sunday, Cummins opted to bat first after winning the toss in their World Cup opener.
Talented India opener Shubman Gill, who is down with dengue, could not recover in time and left-handed Ishan Kishan has been drafted in as his replacement.
"He (Shubman Gill) hasn't recovered in time. Ishan comes in to replace him, he will open the batting," Rohit said at the toss.
Line-Ups
India XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj.
Australia XI: David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Glenn Maxwell, Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Adam Zampa.
