The Virat Kohli-led Indian cricket team are already in Australia for a full-fledged tour. This will be India's first international assignment in more than nine months. India's scheduled match before the 2020-21 tour Down Under was against visiting South Africa. But that series never happened after the first of the three ODIs in Dharamsala on March 12 was abandoned without a ball bowled due to rain, strangely, in COVID-19 times. Then, the Proteas left India as the remaining two matches were cancelled due to the pandemic. (More Cricket News)
The pandemic continues to wreak havoc. But the Australia-India cricket series, involving three ODIs, three T20Is and four Test matches, will go ahead as promised by Cricket Australia. They have the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 to look up to, which was conducted in the United Arab Emirates. Aussies themselves toured England before the T20 carnival in the Middle East.
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Meanwhile, India will wear 'retro' theme shirt, inspired by the Seventies during the dual limited-overs leg. The new shirts will have a Navy Blue shade, a shift from the conventional sky blue colour.
Now, the focus is on the first match of the tour, for all the right or wrong reasons. Here's a look at it, and how to watch it live:
Match: Australia vs India, first of three ODIs
Date: November 27 (Friday), 2020
Time: 9:10 AM IST/2:40 PM Local
Venue: Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia
TV Listing: SONY TEN 1, SONY TEN 3 and SONY SIX. National broadcasters DD will also broadcast the tour.
Live Streaming: SonyLiv
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Head-to-head: Australia lead the head-to-head record 78-52 with 10 no results in 140 meetings. In the last meeting, India beat Australia by seven wickets at Chinnaswamy Stadium to win the home series 2-1. Before that Kohli & Co won their World Cup meeting by 36 runs at Kennington Oval.
Likely XIs
Australia: Aaron Finch, David Warner, Marcus Stoinis, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Alex Carey (wk), Glenn Maxwell, Sean Abbott, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazelwood.
India: Mayank Agarwal, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal.
Squads
Australia: Aaron Finch (Captain), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Sams, Kane Richardson (replaced by Andrew Tye), Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade (wicketkeeper), David Warner, Adam Zampa.
India: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul (vice-captain & wicket-
keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur, Sanju Samson (wicketkeeper).
