Adelaide, Dec 5 (IANS) India captain Rohit Sharma on Thursday confirmed that KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal will continue to open the innings in the pink-ball Test against Australia at Adelaide Oval, commencing on Friday.
Jaiswal hammered 161 in the second innings of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series opener in Perth while Rahul scored 77 to set up India’s 295-run win.
“KL will open (in Adelaide). The way he batted and his partnership with Jaiswal was instrumental in that first test win. The way he has batted outside India, he deserves it. I will bat somewhere in the middle. It was a fairly simple decision. Personally, it wasn’t easy (as a batsman) but for the team, it was an easy decision to make,” Rohit said in the pre-match press conference on Thursday.
Rohit missed the first Test due to the birth of his second child and in his absence, speedster Jasprit Bumrah led the side with Nitish Kumar Reddy and Harshit Rana making their Test debuts.
Rohit will not play at his regular spot as an opener in the day-night Test in Adelaide. His captaincy and batting came under scanner after Idnia’s historic 0-3 whitewash against New Zealand at home last month. In the last six innings, he accumulated only 93 runs including a half-century. His batting average dropped to 15.16, the lowest of his Test career in a series where he played at least three matches.
Talking about their limited-overs pink-ball warm-up match against the Australian Prime Minister’s XI at Manuka Oval in Canberra last week, Rohit was satisfied with the team’s preparations before they face the real challenge.
“It was just a practice game. We just wanted to play whatever was in front of us because there was clearly a day that was washed off and we wanted to get some game. Not looking into too much details of it, we just wanted to go out there and get some game, just have a feel of pink ball. We don’t play too much pink ball game and we just wanted to go out there and get a feel of it,” he said.
–IANS
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