Australia has made two changes to its starting XI for the second Test against India, with Queensland spinner Matthew Kuhnemann making his Test debut and Travis Head returning to the side in Delhi.
Kuhnemann was flown to the subcontinent earlier this week to replace Queensland teammate Mitchell Swepson, who returned home for the birth of his first child.
The 26-year-old, who becomes Australia’s 466th men’s Test cricketer, has leapfrogged fellow left-arm tweaker Ashton Agar in the pecking order, joining spinners Nathan Lyon and Todd Murphy is the starting XI. Kuhnemann received his baggy green from Bulls teammate Marnus Labuschagne.
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It marks the first time Australia has picked three strike spinners for a Test match since 2017, when Agar, Lyon and Steve O’Keefe played against Bangladesh in Chattogram. Pat Cummins was also the lone paceman on that occasion.
Meanwhile, Head has replaced Matthew Renshaw in an embarrassing backflip for national selectors after the South Australian was axed for last week’s series opener in Nagpur.
Renshaw registered scores of 0 and 2 in the first Test, spending most of day two on the sidelines nursing a minor knee injury.
Head is currently No. 4 on the ICC Test batting rankings, ahead of the likes of Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Rohit Sharma.
“It’s a big reshuffle,” former Australian bowler Brett Lee said on Fox Cricket.
“It’s a great move, (Head) should not have been dropped in the first place.
“A lot of conjecture around whether he can play spin, well why take him to India if he can’t play spin? All they’ve done is probably wrecked his confidence.”
Speaking to reporters on Friday morning, national selector Tony Dodemaide explained that Head’s ability to bowl part-time off-spin helped him earn a recall.
“(Renshaw) is really stiff,” Dodemaide said.
“There’s no slight on him. He’s very much a valued player in our team planning moving forward. He was quite stiff, particularly in the first innings (in Nagpur). So he hasn’t been dropped for those performances.
“The key thing where we see the difference this time around is that Heady does offer quite a valuable option as a fifth bowler and that’s where we felt we were stretched in parts of the game in Nagpur and that fifth bowling option is something that we value, albeit another spinner. But we expect spin to dominate in any case.”
Cameron Green and Mitchell Starc were unavailable for selection in Delhi as they continue to recover from finger injuries sustained during the Boxing Day Test against South Africa.
“We brought them over in the expectation they’d be available,” Dodemaide said.
“Starcy and Greeny didn’t quite come up for this one. We fully expect them to be online for the third one.
“Certainly if (Starc) was 100 per cent we would have had a serious conversation about the bowling structure … it’s great balance if you’ve got that seam bowling without shortening the batting with Greeny being available. That’s not the case and we deal with what you’ve got.”
Agar’s omission in particular raised eyebrows, with the West Australian seemingly falling out of favour following an underwhelming performance against South Africa in the New Year’s Test.
“His red-ball game is not quite where he wants it to be,” Dodemaide said.
“Kuhnemann has come over and impressed. He got a chance in Sri Lanka, albeit in limited-overs form, he’s played well in domestic cricket this season and he’s impressed us in the nets. We just feel his style at the moment is more suited to these conditions.
“It’s a bit unusual going the three spin and one quick. We feel the pitch here, the conditions, we feel that spin will dominate the game once again,
“From what we understand this pitch has been used three times already this year and there’s already substantial cracking in the areas where most of the game is going to be played. That’s the reason for going for the three spinners.”
Meanwhile, India made one change to its starting XI, with Shreyas Iyer replacing Suryakumar Yadav, while Cheteshwar Pujara will play his 100th Test in Delhi.
India has not lost a Test match at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium since 1987, while Australia last tasted victory at the venue way back in 1959 when Richie Benaud was skipper.
Spin bowlers have averaged 29.80 in Delhi since the start of 2013, while quicks have averaged 36.53 during that period. Of the two Tests Australia has played at Arun Jaitley Stadium this century, 27 of the 30 wickets were taken by spinners.
Cummins won the toss and elected to bat first in Delhi, the eighth consecutive toss Australia has won in Tests. The odds of that happening are 0.39 per cent.
Australian XI
David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Peter Handscomb, Alex Carey (WK), Pat Cummins, Todd Murphy, Nathan Lyon, Matt Kuhnemann
Indian XI
Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj
