India won the toss and elected to bat in the one-off cricket Test against Bangladesh at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad here on Thursday.
The match marks Bangladesh’s debut five-day game on Indian soil since gaining Test status in 2000.
For India, middle order batsman Ajinkya Rahane and opener Murali Vijay returned to the side after recovering from their respective injuries. Triple Centurion in the last test versus England, Karun Nair was left out of the playing eleven.
Between the two sides, World No 1 India has won six games out of eight while drawing remaining two.
Mushfiqur: “A great moment for Bangladesh cricket and hopefully we would put up a good performance against the number one team in the world. We learned a couple of things from the last match, a couple of mistakes cost us the game against NZ. We have to keep our momentum up for all five days, and we learned some key lessons out there. The wicket would be pretty good for the first two days, and the spinners will come in later. We are going in with two quicks, two spinners, and seven batsmen.”
Kohli: “We would like to bat first. Looks like a pretty nice surface to bat on. A hard surface, an even covering of grass and should be nice to bat on. Hyderabad has always been a good batting wicket. It is hard, and the fast bowlers do get some help out here if they bowl in the right areas and today promises to be no different. For us the opposition is not something we focus on, we focus on executing our skills and executing our plans. We would like to go ahead and play this Test match with the same mindset. We are playing with five bowlers, and unfortunately, Karun misses out. Ajinkya Rahane comes back in. Bhuvi, Umesh and Ishant are the three quicks along with Ashwin and Jadeja.”
India playing eleven:
Murali Vijay, Lokesh Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (Captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma.
Bangladesh playing eleven:
Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Mominul Haque, Mahmudullah, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim (Captain, WK), Sabbir Rahman, Mehedi Hasan, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Kamrul Islam Rabbi.
