Team India Predicted Playing 11 for 1st T20I vs Australia: Jasprit Bumrah, Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson IN, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav OUT

Asia Cup 2025 champions Team India are set to begin a five-match T20I series against Australia with first game set to take place at the Manuka Oval in Canberra on Wednesday. India will be keen to avenge the 2-1 ODI series loss to the Australians by winning the T20I series in the road to the T20 World Cup 2026 next year.

Suryakumar Yadav will be back in charge of the T20I line-up after Shubman Gill had been in charge in the ODI series. The Indian batting line-up is expected to have a familiar look and feel to it from the one which won the Asia Cup title against Pakistan last month.

World No. 1 T20I batter Abhishek Sharma will be opening the innings with Gill with world No. 2 Tilak Varma at the No. 3 position followed skipper Suryakumar Yadav and wicketkeeper Sanju Samson at the number five position. With Hardik Pandya out with a quardriceps injury, Nitish Kumar Reddy is expected to step up in his place having recovered from the injury which kept him out of the playing 11 in the third ODI at Sydney last week.

 

Along with Reddy, Shivam Dube will double up as the pace bowling all-rounder with skipper Suryakumar and head coach Gautam Gambhir putting faith in his medium-pace in slow conditions in Dubai as well.

Axar Patel will be expected to be the spin bowling all-rounder but there will be no place for chinaman Kuldeep Yadav in the line-up as the conditions in Canberra are unlikely to provide much assistance to spin bowlers. Varun Chakravarthy is expected to lead the spin bowling attack with his mystery off-spinners.

Jasprit Bumrah will be back leading the pace bowling attack after being rested for the three-match ODI series and will be expected to be part of the playing 11 in place of Harshit Rana, who had claimed four wickets in the third ODI at the SCG.

Indians should prefer to go into the match with left-arm pacer of Arshdeep Singh, who needs one wicket to complete 100 wickets in T20I cricket and become the first Indian pacer to achieve this feat. However, Team India may prefer the option of playing Rana over Arshdeep due to his superior batting ability.

India Predicted Playing 11 vs Australia for 1st T20I match

Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (C), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh/Harshit Rana

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