India captain Rohit Sharma kept himself at the No.5 batting slot in the pink-ball warm-up match against the Australian Prime Minister’s XI. Rohit, who landed in Australia during the first Test against Australia, had opted out of the Perth Test due to the birth of his second child.

This means he could demote himself in the batting order in the night Test starting on December 6. The move will allow KL Rahul to continue as an opener with Yashasvi Jaiswal. Rahul scored 77 runs and added 201 runs with Jaiswal in the second innings.

The visitors won the match by 205 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25.

Rohit will be under pressure as India lost the previous Test series by 0-3 against New Zealand, with the skipper scoring 91 runs in six innings. He has been out of form for a long time, and his performance against the pacers is a cause of concern for the team management.

In the series against the Kiwis, the spinners dominated the proceedings, but Rohit was the only batter who failed against the pacers. With Australian pitches good for the speedsters, Rohit will have to bat smartly.

Team India Line-up for Warm-Up match

KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Devdutt Padikkal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Ravichandran Ashwin, Sarfaraz Khan.