SCG Test Day one: Australia on top but Jasprit Bumrah strikes late to fire up India

What a soft dismissal by KL Rahul!

It’s a good length on the pads and Rahul just chips it straight to Sam Konstas at forward square leg who takes the simplest of catches.

He indicates the ball stopped on him and he couldn’t keep it down. It’s great field placement from Cummins but there was no need to play that shot from Rahul.

Cummins beat Jaiswal three times in his first over and there’s some late swing on offer for both bowlers.

However, Australia haven’t quite found a consistent length yet either dropping too short or going too full.

With dark grey skies and a healthy covering of grass it could be a challenging day for batters though the outfield is quick.

IND 0/11

Beau Webster received is Test cap this morning presented by Mark Waugh who may of had to stretch to reach the top of his tall frame.

Last summer he put together the best individual Shield season by any player except for the immortal Gary Sobers in 1963-64.

He can bowl both pace and spin but with the healthy covering of grass on the pitch expect it to be seam up when he features later today.

Starc takes the new ball. How will he fare after such a short turnaround and battling a rib issue?

FOUR. Jaiswal is off the mark as Starc overpitches and Jaiswal whips him off his toes to the boundary.

He awkwardly fends a short ball away for a single. Rahul defends his first to complete the first over.

The official word is that he has opted to ‘rest’ but may no mistake that is merely parlour tricks.

For one Sharma has only played three Tests and he struggled in all of them averaging 6.2 with the bat.

He was also coming off a poor series against New Zealand in India and at 37 years old and India not playing another Test until June at the earliest, when Sharma will be 38, it’s hard to see how he comes back.

If this is the end it’s a massive shame the Indian champion doesn’t get a proper send-off but perhaps this tour was a bridge to far for the aging star.

Australia: 1 Usman Khawaja, 2 Sam Konstas, 3 Marnus Labuschagne, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Travis Head, 6 Beau Webster, 7 Alex Carey (wk), 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Scott Boland

India: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 KL Rahul, 3 Shubman Gill, 4 Virat Kohli, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Jasprit Bumrah (capt), 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Prasidh Krishna

He was under huge pressure following his failure in Melbourne and the Indian captain will not be playing in Sydney with Bumrah captaining as he did in Perth.

Bumrah said Rohit had opted to ‘rest’ with KL Rahul returning to his opening position and Shubman Gill coming in at three.

“Obviously there will be a challenge with the new ball but if you get through it’s always a god batting track,” Bumrha said.

“Our captain has shown leadership by opting to rest in this game. That shows there’s a lot of unity in this team. There’s no selfishness.”

Pradish Krishna has also come in for Akash Deep who picked up an injury at the MCG.

Good morning and welcome to what promises to be an enthralling final act in what has already been a titanic series between Australia and India.

India have won the toss and will bat first and need nothing less than a win to keep their hands on the trophy and keep themselves alive in the race for the World Test Championship final.