As Sriram Veera, The Indian Express’ man on the ground in Australia notes from the stadium, “The debut caps were just given away to Nitish Reddy and Harshit Rana. Virat Kohli handed it to Reddy, while R Ashwin presented it to Rana. And the Indian team huddle breaks away.”

The report had also mentioned that the Indian cricket team’s think tank had opted to pick off-spinner Washington Sundar over Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Washington Sundar had a remarkable series against New Zealand, where India were humbled at home. In the series at home against New Zealand, Washington Sundar claimed 16 wickets in the two Tests he played, including a 10-wicket match haul in Pune.

Players like Cheteshwar Pujara have asked that KL Rahul be tried at the No 3 spot.

Sriram Veera’s notes from the Optus Stadium

9:19 am (local time in Perth) | 6.20 am (IST): “With 30 minutes to go for the toss, not much change in the crowd scene, I’m afraid,” writes in Sriram Veera. “Not many inside and neither are they ‘streaming in through the turnstiles’. Surprisingly. The Indian origin crowds too haven’t yet turned up in any significant numbers. Of course the official start of play is at 10.20, an hour away. With the entry and exit a breeze in this large stadium, one can afford to come close to start and still get to your seat before the first edge carries through to second slip.”

10:06 am (local time in Perth) | 7.36 am (IST): Finally crowd coming in. And some colour and noise.

IND vs AUS 1st Test Toss Update from Perth

India won the toss at Perth and chose to bat first.

IND vs AUS 1st Test pitch report

“This looks like a good wicket,” notes Jasprit Bumrah, who is captaining India in the absence of Rohit Sharma. “For our batters and our team [the WACA] was a great experience. We played a Test here in 2018 so we know what to expect. The wicket gets quicker after the first session.”

His counterpart Pat Cummins adds: “We were 50-50, either way we are pretty happy. Feel well placed, pretty fresh. Any format we (India-Australia) play seems fiercely fought. Nathan McSweeney makes our debut at the top of the order.”

IND vs AUS 1st Test Final playing XIs

India Playing XI: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 KL Rahul, 3 Devdutt Padikkal, 4 Virat Kohli, 5 Rishabh Pant, 6 Dhruv Jurel, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 9 Harshit Rana, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mohammed Siraj

Australia Playing XI: Nathan McSweeney, 2 Usman Khawaja, 3 Marnus Labuschagne, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Travis Head, 6 Mitchell Marsh, 7 Alex Carey (wk), 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Josh Hazlewood