India captain Rohit Sharma on Thursday confirmed that KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal will open the innings again in the pink-ball Test against Australia at Adelaide Oval on Friday.
Jaiswal smashed 161 in the second innings of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy opener against Australia in Perth while Rahul made 77 to set up India's 295-run victory.
"KL will open (in Adelaide). The way he batted and his partnership with Jaiswal was instrumental in that first test win. The way he has batted outside India, he deserves it. I will bat somewhere in the middle. It was a fairly simple decision. Personally, it wasn't easy (as a batsman) but for the team, it was an easy decision to make," Rohit said in the pre-match press conference on Thursday.
Rohit missed the first Test owing to the birth of his second child and in his absence, speedster Jasprit Bumrah led the side with Nitish Kumar Reddy and Harshit Rana making their Test debuts.
Rohit will not open the innings at his preferred position in the day-night Test in Adelaide. His captaincy and batting came under scanner after Idnia's historic 0-3 whitewash against New Zealand at home last month. In the last six innings, he could muster only 93 runs, which included a half-century. His batting average had come down to 15.16, the lowest in his Test career in a series where he played at least three matches.
Talking about their limited-overs pink-ball warm-up match against the Australian Prime Minister's XI at Manuka Oval in Canberra last week, Rohit was content with how things have been going before the real test.
"It was just a practice game. We just wanted to play whatever was in front of us because there was clearly a day that was washed off and we wanted to get some game. Not looking into too much details of it, we just wanted to go out there and get some game, just have a feel of pink ball. We don't play too much pink ball game and we just wanted to go out there and get a feel of it," he said.
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