Confident No.1 India take on No. 2 Australia

Pune: Dominant India looks to extend winning streak on slow and low surface in Pune debut Test starts from Thursday.

In the past decade, Australia has played ten Tests in India, losing eight and drawing the rest.

India should bring Jayant Yadav back into the XI, at the expense of either Ishant Sharma or Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Jayant starred with both bat and ball in the three Tests he played against England –- scoring a century from No. 9 in Mumbai – and should be potent support for Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja against a line-up that has more than a few left-hand batsmen.

There will be no tinkering with the batting line-up, though concerns remain about the opening partnership. Murali Vijay and Lokesh Rahul have now opened together 12 times, and they average 18.91 with a highest association of 52. Abhinav Mukund another option for India.

They will be tasked with subduing a line-up that has crossed 600 in each of its last three matches. Virat Kohli alone has made 1206 runs in the ongoing home season. Away assignments don't come much tougher than this.

Kohli has 4 double-hundreds in 4 successive series. He has now 13 more hundreds in the last 4 years.

Australia has opening woes of its own. Matt Renshaw made 184 in his last Test innings, but is a newbie in this part of the world. But despite twin failures in the warm-up game in Mumbai, he looks likely to get the nod ahead of Usman Khawaja, whose past record in Asia inspires little confidence.

Unlike India, Australia do not have a well furnished batting line-up. No doubt that Warner, Smith, and Shaun will play given this experience as well as skills in subcontinent conditions.

Smith and Peter Handscomb will join the Marsh brothers in the middle order. Shaun Marsh's displays in Sri Lanka, and experience of Indian conditions – he made a century in the practice match – means a chance to resurrect a career that has seen just 19 Test caps in more than five years.

Mitchell Marsh averages 23 with the bat and 37 with the ball after the same number of games. He did well in patches in Sri Lanka, on a disastrous tour for Australia, but the selection owes more to the obsession most teams now have with having an all-rounder in the side.

A 4-0 whitewash is the talk of the town, but let us not forget that Australia have a reputation of coming back from the dead.

Teams from

India: Virat Kohli (c), Lokesh Rahul, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Abhinav Mukund, Karun Nair, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma, Jayant Yadav, Umesh Yadav and Kuldeep Yadav

Australia: Steven Smith (c), David Warner, Matt Renshaw, Usman Khawaja, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Matthew Wade (wk), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Steve O'Keefe, Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Swepson

Stats and trivia

• Of its last 20 home Tests, going back to December 2012, India has won 17 and drawn three.
• The MCA Ground in Pune will be the 25th venue in India to host Test cricket.
• Unusual as it is for Australia to play two matches in different countries on consecutive days - a T20 in Adelaide on Wednesday and a Test in Pune on Thursday - England once played two Tests on the same day in 1930, one in New Zealand and one in the Caribbean

Match facts
February 23-27, 2017
Start time 0930 local (0400 GMT)