Tim Paine on Australia’s Playing XI: The Australian Test captain has hinted against making multiple changes to their Playing XI.
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In what has been a role reversal for both the sides, hosts Australia haven’t officially announced their Playing XI on the eve of their first Test of the summer but visitors India have announced their Playing XI.
India, who had a couple of major decisions to make before finalizing their XI for their first Test after more than nine months, have stuck with their incumbent opening batsman but swapped their incumbent wicket-keeper batsman despite him scoring his seventh first-class century in the second tour match.
As far as Australia are concerned, they’ve had their own share of problems especially with a bunch of players injuring themselves in the last two weeks or so.
Speaking on the eve of the match, Test captain Tim Paine laid emphasis on sticking to their last XI despite it last playing a match in the first week of 2020. Addressing the opening conundrum, Paine once again batted for incumbent Joe Burns to further add weight to the possibility of him opening the batting with a makeshift opener in Matthew Wade.
Tim Paine on Australia’s Playing XI
“Speaking to Joe [Burns], I don’t think he is [lacking confidence]. He’s been looking forward to this Test match,” Paine was heard saying in a video posted on ESPNcricinfo’s Twitter handle. “Obviously, his build-up in terms of runs hasn’t been great. But again, if you look at the work he’s done solely for Test cricket for this team, it’s been very good. He averages just over 40 [38.30] I think in Test cricket.
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“If Joe walks out to bat tomorrow, we’ve got full confidence in him doing the job, there’s no doubt about that. Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of noise externally about the first Test and what team we’re picking. Internally, we’ve been pretty clear for a while. Things have changed a little bit with injury as I said, I think tomorrow you’ll see a pretty similar side walk out that finished the summer last year here in Australia,” the Australia captain added.
