Australia vs India 2018-19: India's predicted playing XI for the second TestÂ
India created history at the Adelaide Oval as they beat Australia by 31 runs in the first Test of the ongoing four-match series. With this, India won their first match on Australian soil after a decade and Virat Kohli became the first Asian captain to win a Test match in England, South Africa and Australia.
It was a complete team performance by the Indians as they had the Australians under pressure throughout after getting off to a disastrous start on day 1. Going into the second Test that gets underway at the Optus Stadium in Perth on December 14, India will be looking to address a few things.
Will they go in with the winning combination or will they disturb it by making a few changes to their XI? With the pitch expected to assist the seamers with reverse swing and have some assistance for the spinners (thanks to Dean Jones), it will be interesting to see what Virat Kohli does in picking his XI.
Let us take a look at the playing XI that is likely to take the field in Perth in a few days' time.
KL Rahul and Murali Vijay
After falling cheaply in the first innings of the Adelaide Test, Murali Vijay and KL Rahul gave India a good start in the second innings as they saw of the new ball and stayed together for 18 overs in which they scored around 60 runs.
KL Rahul, in particular, took the attack to the Aussie bowlers after weathering the early storm as he played some magnificent strokes. He tried to play one shot too many as he ended up edging the ball to Tim Paine when he tried to smash Josh Hazlewood over mid-off after making a stroke-filled 44.
Vijay, on the other hand, looked far from his best as he kept poking outside his off-stump more often than not. He will look to work on this aspect which helped him taste a lot of success in the past. But, he will be happy to get some runs under his belt before he edged one to the slip cordon for 18.
With Prithvi Shaw racing against time to play the second Test, the team management might not rush him into the playing XI and give him enough time to recover so that he regains full fitness going into the Boxing Day Test.