India vs Australia series: First T20 match preview

India and Australia resume their cricket rivalry four days after the World Cup final with a five-match T20 series starting in Vishakhapatnam.

Who: India vs Australia
When: Thursday, November 23, 2023, 7pm (13:30 GMT)
Where: Vishakhapatnam

India and Australia are set to take the field against each other less than a week after their meeting in the ICC Cricket World Cup final in a five-match Twenty20 series.

Both finalists have rested a number of star players for the series that begins on Thursday in Visakhapatnam in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, followed by Thiruvananthapuram on November 26 and Guwahati on November 28. The final two matches will be held in Bengaluru on December 1 and Raipur on December 3.

Suryakumar Yadav will captain India, leading a squad with just three members of the team that lost the World Cup final.

Middle-order batter Yadav, who was just one of three players from the one-day team to be selected for the T20 squad, will captain India for the first time. 

Shreyas Iyer will join the squad as vice-captain for the last two T20s, in Raipur on December 1 and in Bengaluru on December 5, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said.

Australia’s veteran opener David Warner has also withdrawn from the series following his exploits in the victorious World Cup campaign. Warner was Australia’s leading scorer at the World Cup with 535 runs at 48.63.

His withdrawal means just seven of Australia’s World Cup-winning squad will remain in India for the series, among them Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell and Steve Smith.

All-rounder Aaron Hardie replaces Warner, who is gearing up to say farewell to Test cricket.

“Selectors decided Warner would return home on the back of a successful yet demanding World Cup campaign,” Cricket Australia said in a statement.

India went into Sunday’s World Cup final in front of nearly 100,000 fans in Ahmedabad undefeated in the lead-up games of the tournament and favourites to capture the one-day crown.

But Rohit Sharma’s team was outplayed by Pat Cummins’s Australia, suffering a six-wicket defeat and breaking the hearts of millions across the country. India and Australia had also faced each other in a three-match one-day international (ODI) series in September ahead of the World Cup, also in India, which the hosts won 2-1.

India and Australia have met in 25 T20 international matches, of which India have won 15 and Australia 10.

India won (2-1) their last bilateral T20 series, which took place in September 2022.

India: Suryakumar Yadav (Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wicket-keeper), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar

Australia: Matthew Wade (captain), Aaron Hardie, Jason Behrendorff, Sean Abbott, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wicket-keeper), Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa

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Al Jazeera and news agencies