Team India are in red hot form, having whitewashed Sri Lanka 9-0 across all formats recently on their tour of the Emerald Islands.

 

However in Australia, the Men-in-Blue have a much tougher opponent with the first of 5 ODIs taking place at Chennai on Sunday (17th September, 2017).

 

The ODIs will be followed by a 3-match T20I series. With India v Australia traditionally being intensity contests, the young Indian players have a lot to gain as Virat Kohli and Co. continue their build up towards ‘Mission World Cup 2019’. Here are five key players to watch out for in this series.


‘Dabbang’ Pandey- Manish Pandey will be eager to prove his mettle again. Having made the most of limited opportunities towards the later half of Sri Lanka tour with scores of 50* and 36 in the last two ODIs and a match-winning 51* in the solo T20, Pandey will be keen to ensure that he increases his chances of cementing the number four spot. In his last ODI against the Aussies in January 2016, the prolific batsman had scored a match-winning 104* in a high-scoring chase at Sydney. An encore may well be on the cards in this series.

 

The ‘X’ factor – Having made his international debut against Australia in the final Test of an epic series in March at Dharamsala, Kuldeep Yadav will want to ensure that his strangelhold over the men from Down Under continues. His debut spell in international cricket included scalps like David Warner and Glenn Maxwell. Having gained in confidence and momentum with 2 Tests, 7 ODIs and 2T20I appearances, Kuldeep may well be the ‘X’ factor for Team India in this series. The Indian pitches will be tailor-made for him to display his magic with the ball again. 

The ‘debutant’ – Having appeared in 10 ODIs against Australia in Australia, Umesh Yadav is now finally ready for his home ODI ‘debut’ against the Men from Down Under. After being rested for the limited-overs leg against Sri Lanka, the pacer will be raring to go out and hit timber yet again. His pace has been his strength and off-lately he has worked hard on his line and length too. His inclusion in the squad has brought variety for skipper Virat Kohli.


The limited overs ‘specialist’- After plucking 15 wickets and being adjudged as the Man of the Series in ODIs against Sri Lanka, Jasprit Bumrah will be hungry to add more scalps in his kitty. He is not an expressive kind of player on the field but he makes his yorkers talk for him. Incidentally, both his ODI and T20I debut were against Australia at Sydney and Adelaide respectively during India’s last tour to Australia in January 2016.

The Cummins factor- In the absence of Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, the Aussies will rest their hopes on Pat Cummins. He will certainly be Steven Smith's 'Man Friday'. Cummins have come into limelight with his brilliant performances over past few months. He can surely be a thorn for India in this series, especially after an impressive show in the Test series a few months back in India.

Indian team for first three ODIs: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami. 

 

 

The series schedule

 

 

17-Sep

1st ODI

Chennai

 

21-Sep

2nd ODI

Kolkata

 

24-Sep

3rd ODI

Indore

 

28-Sep

4th ODI

Bengaluru

 

1-Oct

5th ODI

Nagpur

 

7-Oct

1st T20I

Ranchi

 

10-Oct

2nd T20I

Guwahati

 

13-Oct

3rd T20I

Hyderabad