KL Rahul finally dropped, Gill replaces him in 3rd Test

Young opening batter Shubman Gill got his much-deserved place in India’s playing XI finally.

The team management decided to drop out of form batter KL Rahul from the team for the third Test against Australia at the Holkar Stadium in Indore.

Rahul, who managed score of 20, 17 and 1 in the three innings so far, has been under the scanner for his poor form.

Rahul last scored a Test half-century in January, 2022 against South Africa in Johannesburg.

His last Test ton came against the same opponents in December 2021.

Shubman, on the other hand, has scored 736 runs in 13 Tests with one tons and four half-centuries.

He has been in great form and recently scored a double ton in ODIs too.

Gill is one of the few Indian players to have a ton in all formats.

After announcing India’s playing XI, India captain Rohit did not reveal the reason behind Rahul’s exclusion.

“We will have a bat first. It is a pretty good dressing room and like you said the morale is high.”

“The guys are confident about their skills which is a good thing moving forward. We have played a lot of cricket (here) but this one (surface) is slightly different.”

“Looks little dry and you have to adapt your skills and be at it all the time. We are there yet (WTC final) and we have to come and win this game, we have to try and repeat the things we did in the first two Tests.”

“It is important to stay present. We have made two changes – Gill has come in place of KL. We have rested Shami, Umesh comes in place of him,” Rohit said at the toss.

Many cricket fans were happy with at Rahul’s exclusion and flooded Twitter with witty memes.

One fan wrote – Shubman Gill has played only 15 balls so far and he is already past KL Rahul’s highest score in this series

India also decided to rest pace bowler Mohammed Shami, bringing in Umesh Yadav for the game.

However, India lost five early wickets in the opening session. Matt Kuhnemann dismissed Rohit Sharma (12), Shubman Gill (21) and Shreyas Iyer (0).

Nathan Lyon got the better of Cheteshwar Pujara (1) and Ravindra Jadeja (4).

Australia also made two changes to the side that lost the second Test by six wickets in New Delhi.

They brought in pace-bowling stalwart Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green in place of Pat Cummins and David Warner, who have both returned home.

India (Playing XI):

Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Srikar Bharat(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj

Australia (Playing XI):

Usman Khawaja, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith(c), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey(w), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann