AHMEDABAD, India : Australia’s stand-in captain Steve Smith won the toss and elected to bat as the tourists fielded an unchanged side in the fourth and final test against India in Ahmedabad on Thursday.
India, who led the series 2-1, made one change to the line-up that lost to Australia by nine wickets in Indore, resting Mohammed Siraj and bringing in fellow paceman Mohammed Shami.
India need to win the match to join Australia in the final of the World Test Championship at The Oval in June.
“It does look like a nice surface,” said Smith, who is leading Australia for the second test in a row in the absence of regular skipper Pat Cummins, who flew home to be with his ailing mother.
“It’s hard to say until we get out in the middle but it does look like a good wicket.”
Each of the first three tests finished inside three days but India captain Rohit felt the match in Ahmedabad might last the full five days.
“It looks like a very good pitch,” the opener said.
“I don’t know when it’s going to start turning. But yeah, it looks a good pitch. I hope it stays like that for all five days.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after whom the stadium is named, and his Australia counterpart, Anthony Albanese, were watching the match.
Teams:
India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, KS Bharat (wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami
Australia: Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith (captain), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wicketkeeper), Mitchell Starc, Todd Murphy, Nathan Lyon, Matthew Kuhnemann
