India Australia Tour: The Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series between India and Australia will be played with five Test matches starting from November 22. Before this, a series of two unofficial Test matches are being played between India A and Australia A. Australia A won the first match by 7 wickets. Now, the second unofficial test match between the two teams will begin on November 7. Team India is likely to get a new starting pairing in this match. In the first unofficial Test match, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Abhimanyu Easwaran opened the innings.
KL Rahul to open with Abhimanyu Easwaran
According to ESPNcricinfo reports, KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel have left for Australia ahead of other members of the Indian Test team, and the two of them are likely to participate in the second unofficial Test match. Rahul opened the innings alongside Abhimanyu Easwaran, who has scored huge numbers in domestic cricket. Captain Gaikwad can play in the midfield. Reports also claim that the wicketkeeping duties could be handed over to Dhruv Jurel in place of Ishan Kishan.
The first Test match will be played in Perth
The first Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia will be played on November 22 in Perth. Regular captain Rohit Sharma is unlikely to play the first Test match. After the 3-0 Test series loss to New Zealand, he said he was unsure whether he would be able to travel to Perth. In this case, the team management will field outstanding openers, KL Rahul and Abhimanyu Easwaran to open the batting in the first Test along with Yashasvi Jaiswal. The pair will also take part in unofficial Test matches, which will give them time to prepare and better adapt to the conditions in Australia.
KL Rahul’s bat is not one for runs.
KL Rahul hasn’t been able to put up a show to his name for a while now. He was also left out of the playing XI in the second and third Tests against New Zealand. Sarfaraz Khan got a chance to replace him. Rahul is going through a bad phase of his career and so far he has scored 2551 runs in 75 innings in 44 Test matches for India, including 7 centuries and 12 half-centuries. Rahul, who has been batting in the middle order since 2023-24, has scored 339 runs in 10 innings at an average of 37.66. Now he’s looking at the big picture. Rahul also performed well at the start of the England tour. He has experience of facing the new ball abroad.
Abhimanyu Easwaran, on the other hand, is yet to make his Test debut for India but has performed well with the bat in domestic cricket. He scored 7657 runs in 100 first-class matches, including 27 centuries.
India’s A team line-up for the second unofficial Test match:
Ruturaj Gaikwad (Captain), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sai Sudarshan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Devdutt Padikkal, Ricky Bhui, Baba Inderjit, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Porel, Mukesh Kumar, Khalil Ahmed, Navdeep Saini, Manav Suthar, Tanush Kotian, Prasidh Krishna, KL Rahul Dhruv Jurel (goalkeeper)
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