India to wait on Gill until opening Test morning; Reddy one to watch out for

PTI Perth: A final call on Shubman Gill's availability for the opening Test against Australia will be taken on the morning of the match, India's bowling coach Morne Morkel said on Wednesday, adding that uncapped batting all-rounder Nitish Reddy will be the one to keep an eye on. Gill remains doubtful for the series-opener, starting here Friday, at the Optus Stadium after copping a blow to his left thumb during India's intra-squad training match here a few day ago. Morkel said Gill is on the mend as the visitors look to fight fire given that they will be without regular skipper Rohit Sharma for the first game. "Shubman is improving every day. He picked up a nasty blow in that squad game.

With him it's going to be a day-to-day sort of process," Morkel told reporters ahead of a training session. "Fingers crossed for that improvement. They'll wait to make a call with him up until the morning of the Test match," he added. Morkel said Reddy will be one to watch out for in the series given his all-round skills. "He's one of the young guys that we've mentioned here that has got that batting all-round ability. He'll be a guy that can hold the one end up first. (With the ball) he hits the bat a little bit harder than you think," he said.

"On these sort of conditions, where there might be a little bit of seam movement up front, especially the first couple of days, he'll be a handy bowler, a very accurate wicket-to-wicket style of bowler." "It's a lovely opportunity for him to fill that all-rounder spot. Any team in the world always want the all-rounder that can take that load off your fast bowlers just to give them an extra bit of breathing time." Morkel said Jasprit Bumrah will have to carry out the role of the leader among bowlers as India would not want to rush Mohammed Shami back into the mix. come to Australia, you want to do well. This is where you make a name for yourself on one of the biggest stages in the world to play cricket.

Happy that Pujara isn't here: Josh Hazlewood Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood is pretty happy that he will not have to bowl to India Test veteran Cheteshwar Pujara in the latest chapter of Border-Gavaskar Trophy, beginning here on Friday. The Indian team has moved on from the likes of Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, both of whom played a major hand in ensuring the visitors' back-to-back win Down Under four years ago. Pujara was the rock of Indian batting on the previous two tours Down Under.

He faced the maximum numbers of balls to wear down Australia's formidable pace attack. "I am pretty happy that Puj (Pujara) isn't here. He's obviously one that bats time, makes you really earn his wicket every time, has done really well on Australia on all these tours," Hazlewood told reporters here.