Australia vs India: Third Test, Day 1, international cricket live scores, blog

Australia will take on India in the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The Boxing Day Test will begin at 10:30am (AEDT), and you can follow it with live scores and a blog from The Roar below.

Going into the third Test with the series level and one more game to follow makes the match-up even more interesting.

Last time India were in Australia, the hosts had already gone 2-0 up and, despite strong batting performances from both sides, looked a far more potent bowling side.

In fact, since 2011, there’s been only one other team to have gone into the third Test with at least parity in the proceedings in a series played in Australia.

The issue, for the visitors, however, is that Australia have smelled blood, having won their first ever Test match since the ball-tampering saga back in March this year and they wouldn’t want to take their foot off the throat.

A lot could depend on the toss though.

Batting first has proven to be an advantage in the series, as has also been the case over the past five years – with Australia having lost just one of the 17 Tests in which they have batted first.

Going into this one, there has been a lot of speculation about the pitch, as is the norm before most games.

However, this is more so in Melbourne given what transpired last time a Test was played here.

Just 24 wickets fell over five days of the Test, and the surface was termed as ‘poor’ by the ICC leaving the ‘G with the task of upping the ante – lest they get banned.

What will not be speculated is the playing XIs of the two sides because both teams have been announced.

Australia have made just one change, bringing in Mitchell Marsh for Peter Handscomb – this is also their first change for the series.

The decision might have been arrived at looking at the nature of the pitch and the need for an extra bowler.

Handscomb’s technique also looked all over the place and he was struggling to score runs.

India’s playing XI looks distinctly different.

Gone are their openers, whose combined total of 97 runs in the series gave them one of the worst averages for India in a long, long time.

In their place, Mayank Agarwal will debut and, in all probability, Hanuma Vihari will be shunted up the order.

Rohit Sharma has returned to the XI.

Also sent out is Umesh Yadav, and he will be replaced by Ravindra Jadeja, thereby lending some more batting to the tail which began at eight in the previous game, and mostly ended there too.

Prediction
The team that wins the toss to bat first and pile on a big score by the end of the day’s play.

Be sure to join The Roar for live coverage of this first day of the third Test at Melbourne from 10:30am (AEDT) and don’t forget to drop a comment in the section below.