Steve smith

Finch entered the ICC T20 World Cup at home struggling with form and his poor run has continued in the showpiece tournament as well, with the 35-year-old scoring 13 off 11 balls and 31 off 42 in the two matches Australia have played. The third game, against England, was abandoned. O'Donnell, who played six Tests and 87 ODIs, said Australia need someone like Smith to guide them.

Smith has been troubled by his injured quad and he too missed the first three ODI matches on the tour. He is one of those on a long list of Australian players that are struggling with injuries. Mitchell Starc still needs to get through a crucial nets session to confirm his availability while Travis Head is also battling a hamstring strain. Australia has called in seasoned Glenn Maxwell as an additional option ahead of the opening Test match.

The 35-year-old Broad is sixth on the list of all-time Test wicket-takers, having taken 526 scalps so far, and ranks third behind country-mate Jimmy Anderson (639 wickets) and former Australian bowler Glenn McGrath (563 wickets) among pacers.

Smith returns from an elbow injury and skipper Finch is recovering well from recent knee surgery, Warner was rested for the recent tours of West Indies and Bangladesh. Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Marcus Stoinis and Pat Cummins are also back in action after missing the recent tours.

Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, David Warner, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Jhye Richardson and Kane Richardson have confirmed their withdrawal from the upcoming tours, days after CA expanded its preliminary squad by six players to 29. While Smith has withdrawn due to elbow injury, six others according to a release from Cricket Australia "requested not to be considered for the tour for various reasons".

This is the third time he is winning the prestigious medal. He was pipped by David Warner by one vote last year.The right-handed batsman made the most runs for Australia across all formats in the voting period with 1,098 at an average of 45.75. The effort was built on four half centuries and four centuries.

Starc, who has played just two seasons of the T20 tournament in 2014 and 2015, had a lacklustre summer against India in Test series picking 11 wickets across four Tests at an average of 40.72. He was the only bowler in Australia camp to leak over three runs an over in the series against India. There was speculation that he would command a big price at this year's auction.

Smith was caught on stump camera trying to remove Pant's guard during the fifth day of the third Test as Australia tried hard to get rid of the left-handed wicketkeeper-batsman who went on the counter-attack.

After bowling out Australia for 338, Gill and Rohit Sharma gave India a solid start as they not only played cautiously but scored runs at a decent rate during the course of their 70-run opening partnership. Rohit, who was playing international cricket after a long time, looked in good touch during the course of his 77-ball knock.

The right-handed batsman was, in fact, the last Australian to score a hundred for his country against India back in 2017 when he made 111 in the first innings of the Dharamsala Test. Since then the Aussies went 11 completed innings, all in Australia, without a century before Smith himself broke the jinx.