Australia win the toss and bat in 1st ODI against India
Captains Aaron Finch and Virat Kohli at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia won the toss and chose to bat in the opening one-day international against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday.
"The middle overs are key for us to improve on. Just playing spin well and keeping wickets in hand at the back end to load up," Australia skipper Aaron Finch said at the toss.
India captain Virat Kohli said: "We would have batted first as well but some of the players are inclined towards chasing.
"It s a brilliant wicket to play on, with the shorter boundary on one side. It s going to be an exciting chase."
Australia -- following their first-ever 2-1 home Test series defeat to India -- made a number of changes to their ODI team.
Alex Carey will open with skipper Aaron Finch, with veteran paceman Peter Siddle to play in his first ODI in more than eight years and Jason Behrendorff to make his ODI debut.
India went for two spinners with Ravi Jadeja returning to the side and Ambati Rayudu and Dinesh Karthik chosen in the middle order.
Hardik Pandya and Lokesh Rahul will be missing after they were sent home from the tour of Australia amid an investigation into comments made about women on a TV celebrity show.
In the last five ODIs at the SCG the average score is 327.
Australia have won three of their last 24 games since the end of January 2017 and are currently ranked sixth, while second-ranked India have only lost one of their last 11 ODIs.
Australian Squad: Aaron Finch (capt), Alex Carey, Shaun Marsh, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Nathan Lyon, Peter Siddle, Jason Behrendorff.
Indian Squad: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (capt), Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Sham, Khaleel Ahmed.
Umpires: Michael Gough (ENG), Paul Wilson (AUS)
TV Umpire: Richard Kettleborough (ENG)
Match Referee: Andy Pycroft (ZIM)
