New song for Rishabh Pant, Ponting's bold prediction about Pant and more - Cricket news today, 4 January 2019

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India have the upper hand in the fourth Test against Australia as they declared their innings at 622/7, thanks to an unbeaten 159 from Rishabh Pant and a stroke-filled 193 from Cheteshwar Pujara.

Meanwhile, South Africa are in pole position against Pakistan in the Cape Town Test as the hosts have already taken a 205-run lead thanks to skipper Faf du Plessis' 103 and fifties from Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma and Quinton de Kock.

Apart from this, a lot of other incidents took place in the world of cricket over the last 24 hours. Let's take a look at the top news from today.

Watch: Hanuma Vihari wrongly given out in a controversial manner

Australian ODI squad to face India announced

The 14-member Australian ODI squad for the upcoming three-match series against India, that gets underway at the SCG on January 12, has been announced.

The squad has a lot of surprises as the selectors have recalled off-spinner Nathan Lyon, batsman Usman Khawaja (who last played an ODI in 2017) and veteran pacer Peter Siddle, whose last match for Australia in the format came way back in 2010.

The selectors have also have decided to leave out Chris Lynn, Travis Head, D'Arcy Short, Ben McDermott, Nathan Coulter-Nile and the Australian Test pace trio of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.

While the pacers, along with Coulter-Nile, have been given rest to recover from the workload and the niggles, the rest have been shown the exit door.

Squad: Aaron Finch (c), Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey (wk), Peter Handscomb, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Peter Siddle, Billy Stanlake, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa.

Also read: Australian ODI squad to face India announced