Australian selectors have rolled the dice, revealing bold changes ahead of their second Test against India in Delhi.
After their abysmal start to the tour in which they were rolled by an innings, Australia has made two major changes to the side.
Travis Head returns at Matthew Renshaw’s expense while spinner Matthew Kuhnemann makes his debut in place of Scott Boland.
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It’s the second test in a row that Australia has rolled out a debutant spinner after Todd Murphy made his first Test start in the opener.
Mitchell Starc has missed out as has Cameron Green.
It means Australia will field just one pace bowler in the form of captain Pat Cummins and three spinners with Murphy and Kuhnemann alongside veteran Nathan Lyon.
Kuhnemann’s inclusion will no doubt be a punch to the guts for Ashton Agar, who was selected as part of the initial touring squad while the debutant was a late call up.
Despite mounting pressure, David Warner retains his spot at the top of the order alongside Usman Khawaja.
Cummins won the toss and elected to bat, much to the displeasure of captain Rohit Sharma, who has elected to change a winning line-up.
Shreyas Iyer has replaced Suryakumar Yadav in the middle order.
“The pitch is dry and obviously batting first would have been ideal,” said Sharma.
“But the kind of application we showed last game took the toss factor away and that is what will be required here.
“It’s important when you’re playing in India, you shouldn’t worry about the toss factor too much. That’s the chat in the group as well.”
Australia XI
David Warner, 2 Usman Khawaja, 3 Marnus Labuschagne, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Travis Head, 6 Peter Handscomb, 7 Alex Carey (wk), 8 Pat Cummins (c), 9 Todd Murphy, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Matthew Kuhnemann
India XI
1 Rohit Sharma (c), 2 KL Rahul, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Virat Kohli, 5 Shreyas Iyer, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Srikar Bharat (wk), 8 Axar Patel, 9 R Ashwin, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Mohammed Siraj
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