India vs Australia 4th Test, Day 1: Steve Smith elects to bat first; Rohit Sharma makes one change

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Ahmedabad, March 9: Australia captain Steve Smith won the toss and elected to bat first in the fourth and final Test against India here at the iconic Narendra Modi Stadium on Thursday (March 9).

Australia are fresh from the big win in the third Test, which was played at the Holkar Stadium in Indore, and will be aiming to draw the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 2-all.

Despite winning the first two Test quite convincingly, the Rohit Sharma-led Indian side had a forgettable performance in the third Test and lost the game.

For India to book a ticket for the World Test Championships (WTC) 2021-23 Final against the same opponents in June, Team India will have to win this game.

Special Guests in attendance for 4th Test

To celebrate 75 years of India and Australia's bilateral relations through cricket, the Prime Ministers of both nations graced the stadium. Indian PM Narendra Modi was accompanied by his Aussie counterpart Anthony Albanese at the stadium. The two heads of state of both countries presented the caps to Australia captain Steve Smith and Indian skipper Rohit Sharma respectively.

Special Coin for Toss for IND vs AUS 4th Test

A specially minted coin, celebrating 75 years of India and Australia relations in cricket, was used for the toss.

After winning the toss, Smith said, "We are going to have a bat, playing with the same team. Looks like a nice surface, and 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)."

The Indian skipper said after losing 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."

India vs Australia Playing XIs for 4th Test

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, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann, Nathan Lyon