The Indian cricketer Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul, and Mayank Agarwal stepped out of their hotel for an outing in Canberra just ahead of the first T20I of the three-match series against Australia on Friday. The players were seen at a cafe in the capital city with Mayank Agarwal’s wife Aashita Sood also joining the group. Hardik Pandya posted a selfie from his outing with his teammates.
India and Australia are all set to lock horns at the Manuka Oval in the first T20I of the three-match series. Virat Kohli and his men suffered a loss in ODI series by a 2-1 margin and will be looking to make a comeback in the shorter format before they clash in the four-match Test series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy from December 17. Captioning the post on Instagram, Hardik wrote: “Out and about beautiful sunny Canberra”.
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The Indian team possesses a much more balanced squad in the T20Is squad while the hosts are without a couple of their key players like David Warner and Pat Cummins. Cummins will be featuring the T20Is to get some much-needed rest ahead of the much-awaited Border-Gavaskar Test series while Warner has injured his groin and is racing against time to be fit for the Test series.
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For India, Rahul will be expected to open the innings along with Shikhar Dhawan. Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, and Manish Pandey should form the team’s middle-order. Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja formed a good partnership in the 3rd ODI and the duo will be expected to bat at No. 6 and No. 7 positions.
India has an edge over Australia when it comes to overall T20I clashes as they have won 11 in comparison to hosts’ 8.
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In 2018, India won one of the two completed T20Is while in 2016, they registered a clean sweep win, 3-0, over the hosts. Virat Kohli’s boys have their best chance of winning a series in Australia in the T20I format and could begin well at the Manuka Oval in Canberra.
