Cricket LIVE: Australia vs India in third one-dayer at the SCG

This was the third-straight time this series Shubman Gill has made the wrong call at the toss of the coin. Here is an interesting stat - this is only the second time skipper Mitch Marsh has elected to bat in his 10 ODIs in charge.

Test captain Pat Cummins has all but declared Nathan Lyon will play all five Ashes Tests this summer, insisting he can’t envision a scenario under which Australia would omit the spinner and field four fast bowlers.

Lyon was dropped for Australia’s last Test in the West Indies – a pink-ball match the tourists won inside three days when Mitchell Starc took 6-9 and Scott Boland claimed a hat-trick to bowl the hosts out for 27 in Kingston.

Lyon was bitterly disappointed to miss that match, but understood the reasoning.

Earlier this week, former Australian one-day quick Kane Richardson raised eyebrows on a Cricket Australia podcast when he suggested bowler-friendly decks could greet teams this summer.

“I’m hearing word out of the Aussie camp that they’re going to want spicy wickets for the Ashes,” Richardson said on the Unplayable Podcast. “In the Shield in the last few years, it’s been tough for batting.”

Lyon had a quiet series against India last summer, taking nine wickets at 36.88, and bowled just one over in the Adelaide day-night Test.

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Australia squad: Mitchell Marsh (c), Xavier Bartlett, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Jack Edwards, Nathan Ellis, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Matthew Kuhnemann, Mitchell Owen, Josh Philippe, Matthew Renshaw, Matthew Short, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa.

Ins: Josh Inglis, Jack Edwards, Matthew Kuhnemann. Out: Marnus Labuschagne

Back in town: Josh Inglis.Credit: Getty Images

Having already clinched the series, Australia are likely to have first-choice wicketkeeper Josh Inglis back from injury (calf strain). Batter Marnus Labuschagne has been released from the squad to return to Brisbane ahead of Queensland’s next Sheffield Shield match. Spinner Matthew Kuhnemann has been recalled, while NSW allrounder Jack Edwards has been drafted in.

India squad: Shubman Gill (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal.

Essendon Airport, late afternoon in February 1971. Bill Lawry, his wife Joy and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Susan, enter the arrivals hall to meet a phalanx of journalists and photographers.

They are there to question Lawry in the immediate aftermath of a signal moment in Australian cricket – the only time in the history of the Australian Test team that a captain has been sacked mid-series and dropped from the team altogether.

No single event has more firmly fixed the image of selectors in the public mind. Silent assassins, wielding power and deciding who to redeem or execute with all the secrecy of Mafia bosses.

Bill Lawry and his family on the day of his brutal axing.Credit: The Age

Over the 55 years since, Australian Test selection has remained the source of endless debate, controversy and huge shifts in custom, communication and the balance of power between players and selectors.

Lawry learned of his axing from teammates, who found out from a journalist, setting the tone for the acrimony that has so often blown up over the selection of Australian cricket teams.

There was Simon Katich’s nuclear eruption after Andrew Hilditch’s panel cut him from the contract list in 2011. The fracturing of Shane Warne’s relationship with Steve Waugh when the captain dropped his deputy in the West Indies. The accusations of state bias when Brad Hodge was jettisoned after six Tests. Or the commotion, 17 years earlier, when Dean Jones was axed for the home summer after making 433 runs in his previous four Tests.

On the eve of the Ashes summer, during which a fresh wave of selections will be debated in pubs, on airwaves and on social media platforms, we spoke to past and present selectors and players to explore exactly how Australian teams are picked.

In 2025, the stakes have never been higher. “A lot of the decisions are effectively multimillion-dollar decisions, rather than going back to a certain time when it wasn’t necessarily that way,” chairman of selectors George Bailey tells this masthead.

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It hasn’t been a great series for batting great Virat Kohli, who has been dismissed for successive ducks for the first time in his ODI career. Fellow veteran Rohit Sharma clipped 73 in Adelaide, and will look to continue that good form here.

What’s going on: Virat Kohli after his dismissal in Adelaide.Credit: AP

This shapes as the last time we’ll see Kohli and Sharma on our shores - here’s hoping they can turn back the clock one last time.

Good afternoon and welcome to today’s coverage of the third and final ODI between Australia and India at the SCG.

Cricket guru Tom Decent and myself will help you through the afternoon and into the night.