Is Rohit Sharma’s Decision to Bowl First at the Gabba Due to Brisbane’s Weather?

The cloudy and wet nature of the weather in Brisbane made it easy for India captain Rohit Sharma to choose to bowl after getting the opportunity to do so by winning the toss in the third Test against Australia. However, the story was quite different right from the beginning of the powerplay.

Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj looked for the swing that seemed to be on offer in the pitch but never found it. This made it easier for Australian openers Nathan McSweeney and Usman Khawaja to muster meaningful partnerships against new ball until rain interfered on Saturday morning at The Gabba.

Sanjay Bangar, the ex-India batsman and batting coach, could not hide his disapproval on the Star Sports show and said, “The first thing that I noticed was that Indian bowlers were looking for swing in the first five overs.” If there is swing you have to bowl a leg stump line because the ball swings and the batsman is forced to play it.

Unlike the opening hour, the rest of the help that came was off the pitch. Overcrowd carry on in: The Indian bowlers compensate after play resumed. “When they came back, they were impressive and disciplined in the next eight overs,” Bangar added.

While the pacers changed their line to fifth stump the two클_remained constant to Australia’s game plan of hanging in there during Bumrah’s over and taking their chances against the rest. These interruptions occurred again and again; by the time rain had stopped play they were 28 for no loss in the13.2 overs.

Told during the test, former England captain Michael Vaughan called it a boon for Australia to have lost the toss because the ball did not swing and the pitch was not lively enough to make batting difficult for the batsmen. Within four overs it looked as if it was a beautiful toss to have been on the losing side, commented Vaughan on X.

For Australia it would have been 26 years since The Gabba side has lost a Test match after being put into bat since 1985. They have been successful within the last three and thirty-nine years, nine times where they triumphed in six and drew thrice.

India may have decided to bowl first because they are wary of their batting line up, which has been very volatile throughout the series. Of their four innings so far, one failed to reach 200. Putting together with foreseen bounce on the deck at The Gabba and overcast conditions, Rohit probably intended to deny Australians an early upper hand.

Facing South Africa, India made two changes in their XI where Akash Deep come in for proved pacer Harshit Rana who could not have an impact on the game and Ravindra Jadeja comes in place of Ravichandran Ashwin who was expensive.

Currently, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is a wrapped five-Test series that is leveled at 1-1: while India won quite massively by 295 runs in the Test in Perth, Australia came back stronger and stoically defeated the visitors by 10 wickets in the pink-ball Test in Adelaide.

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