4th Test: Australia opt to bat against India; Shami replaces Siraj

AHMEDABAD: Australia captain Steve Smith elected to bat first against India in the fourth Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Thursday.

The hosts made just one change with Mohammed Shami replacing pacer Mohammad Siraj, who was given rest considering his workload.

Australia made no changes to their winning team from the third Test. Prime Minster Narendra Modi and Australian PM Anthony Albanese arrived at the stadium to watch the first day of the fourth Test.

PM Modi presented the Test cap to India captain Rohit Sharma while the Australian PM handed the 'Baggy Green' to Aussie skipper Steve Smith.

Both the prime ministers were greeted with loud cheers before the starte of the match as they took a lap of honour across the massive sports arena to celebrate 75 years of friendship between India and Australia.

BCCI president Roger Binny felicitated the Australian Prime Minister while the BCCI secretary Jay Shah felicitated the India Prime Minister.

Some traditional music and dance followed the felicitation, with the crowd cheering.

"We are going to have a bat, playing with the same team. Looks like a nice surface, does look like a good wicket. The guys performed well last week. We'll wait and see (whether he will lead Australia in India again)," Smith said after winning the toss.

"We would have batted first. We know what needs to be done. Siraj is rested and Shami is back. It's always nice to have some time off. We need to regroup as a team, you can reflect on so many things. Not the surface what we saw in the first three Tests, looks a good pitch, I hope it stays the same for all five days," Rohit said during the toss.

Playing XIs:

India: Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Srikar Bharat(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav

Australia: Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith(c), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey(w), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann