The start of the first Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2022-23 is just a few hours away. The first of the four Tests will be played at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur. Both India and Australia look all set to put forth their A game and take an early advantage in a high-octane series. For that, the teams will be fielding their best players on Thursday (9 Feb).
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While Pat Cummins-led Australia have kept the cards close to their chest, the Indian cricket board has dropped a big hint on the players who will be playing the first Test. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) shared a Twitter thread late on Wednesday. The thread had pictures of Indian players practicing ahead of the game. While it may seem like a normal post, the pictures told a different story.
BCCI shared twelve pictures in total. However, one of these 12 pictures had Rahul Dravid, Rohit Sharma, and Suryakumar Yadav. The rest of eleven pictures had eleven individual players. The order of pictures also depicted a story. As the first picture was of Rohit Sharma followed by KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Virat Kohli, it seemed BCCI dropped a hint on the playing XI through the batting order of the players.
Shubman Gill was fifth on the list followed by Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, and Mohammed Siraj. However, the interesting part was that Jaydev Unadkat and Umesh Yadav were the two more faces.
No KS Bharat and Mohammed Shami in the pictures shared raised a few eyebrows as these two players look certain to feature in the playing XI. However, nothing can be said about what Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid are planning on doing. The India captain said in the pre-match PC that they will back the horses for courses.
