Australia captain Aaron Finch won the toss and opted to bowl first against India in the second ODI in Rajkot on Friday. This is a must-win match for the hosts who had a dismal outing in the opener and were defeated by 10 wickets in the first game in Mumbai.
India are trailing 0-1 in the three-match series after Australia won the first match at Wankhede after David Warner and Finch hit centuries to guide the visitors to a thumping win on Tuesday.
India skipper Virat Kohli is back at number 3 position after pushing himself down the order at number 4 in the first ODI so as to accommodate in-form players Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and K.L. Rahul on top. The plan backfired as the hosts suffered a batting collapse and were able to post just a modest total of 255.
The team will miss Rishabh Pant, who suffered a concussion in the first match after getting hit in the helmet by a Pat Cummins bouncer. Rahul will keep wickets in his absence.
The Indian pace attack, which failed to make any impact in the previous match, will hope to scalp some crucial Australian wickets, especially Warner, Finch, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, for India to stay in the game.
Cummins and Mitchell Starc will look to replicating their performance from the Mumbai ODI, having tore through India's batting order and restricting the hosts to 255.
Squads:
India: Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, K.L. Rahul (wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Shami.
Australia: Aaron Finch (captain), Alex Carey (wicket-keeper), Patrick Cummins, Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Marnus Labuschange, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Ashton Turner, David Warner and Adam Zampa.
