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The Men in Blue will start their World Cup campaign as they lock horns with Australia on Sunday, October 08 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. The Rohit Sharma-led side recently faced Australia in a three-match ODI series ahead of the World Cup where they emerged victorious by 2-1. 

India have a major concern heading into the game as their opener Shubman Gill has been diagnosed with Dengue fever. However, the young batting sensation hasn’t been ruled out of the game yet and is under medical supervision.

On the other hand, Australia are coming into the game having won their warm-up fixture vs Pakistan. They lost back-to-back series vs South Africa and India in the lead-up to the tournament. The Pat Cummins-led side has a couple of injury concerns in their side as Marcus Stoinis is down with a hamstring injury while Travis Head is still going under his rehabilitation in Australia and is yet to join the team in India.

Probable Playing XI:

India (IND)

Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill/ Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Siraj

Australia (AUS)

David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Alex Carey (wk), Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green, Adam Zampa, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood

Pitch Report

There have been a total of 23 ODIs played at the venue where out of which 14 have been won by teams batting first while one game has ended in no result. The average first-innings score in the last five matches has been 272 whereas the highest target chased in the history of the venue is 288 by West Indies vs India in 2019. 

Furthermore, out of the last five ODI that India have played in Chennai, they managed to win just two out of those. The captain winning the toss is likely to bat first as chasing under lights gets tricky at the venue.