India opt to bat in Chennai

Chennai [India], Sept 17 (ANI): India have won the toss and elected to bat first in the opening ODI of the five-match series against Australia at the MA Chidambaram Stadium here on Sunday.

As far as Playing XI is concerned, KL Rahul has been left out to give Manish Pandey a go at number four spot while Ajinkya Rahane will open the batting for India in Shikhar Dhawan's absence.

For Australia, Hilton Cartwright will make his ODI?debut while Kane Richardson, Ashton Agar, Peter Handscomb and Aaron Finch have all been left out from the XI.

The visitors are also without their two top pacers -- Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.

Going into the match, India will aim for another comprehensive show against a depleted Australia side after decimating Sri Lanka at their home turf.

India's home advantage will relatively reduce in the limited-overs versions, which promises another stiff contest between the sides.

The Virat Kohli-led side, however, will still start as the favourite. It will go into a stretch of limited-overs cricket at home having swept Sri Lanka across formats recently, and the team is gradually becoming a ruthless unit with players for every condition and situation.

That's evident from India's tremendous success in ODIs over the last two years; the last time India lost a bilateral ODI series was in early 2016 when it was beaten 4-1 by Australia Down Under.

Australia, on the other hand, have returned to India for the first time since their fiery and controversial Border-Gavaskar series earlier this year, which India won 2-1 and which ended with Kohli declaring some of his friendships with the Australian players had been irreparably damaged.

India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli(c), Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni(w), Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah.

Australia Playing XI: David Warner, Hilton Cartwright, Steven Smith(c), Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade(w), James Faulkner, Pat Cummins, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Adam Zampa. (ANI)