London: London greeted Team India with showers and overcast conditions.
The rainy conditions are expected to last till Saturday, with match day-Sunday being forecast as a rain free day, though some cloudy conditions are expected to persist.
The Indian team cancelled its morning training session at the Oval on Friday. Indian captain Virat Kohli and opener Shikhar Dhawan came to the Oval’s indoor academy nets to practice.
The rest of the team had a gym session at the team hotel.
The India-Australia face off will be the fourth match of the world cup on this venue.
The square, under covers due to rain, is not unknown to India -- it played its first warm up match against New Zealand, which it lost, here. It was a low scoring affair.
However since the start of the world cup, the Kennington Oval, home to Surrey Cricket County, has hosted three world cup games.
The first two (England vs South Africa and South Africa vs Bangladesh) were reasonably high scoring games with teams chasing over 300 runs.
The third match between Bangladesh and New Zealand being a sub 250 score affair. The wicket is worn out and bowlers are expected to exploit the wear and tear on the offer.
The slower bowlers have traditionally enjoyed the Oval wicket. However, considering the prevailing conditions, India is likely to field the same winning combination it opted for against South Africa in Southampton.
Given the cloud cover, the temptation to include a third seamer may be there, but as was case in Southampton match, the combination of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah did well with the new ball. The only replacement, if at all, will have to be Mohammed Shami in place of Kumar.
Against West indies, the Australian top order's vulnerability against quality seam and swing was exposed.
Australia did come back from behind to beat India at home in the recent ODI series, but this is a different competition altogether.
India last played at the Oval in the 2017 Champions Trophy, when it lost two matches – against Sri Lanka and the final match against arch rivals Pakistan.
But that had more to do with a bad day of cricket by the team than anything else, as Kohli pointed out. Besides, the team has plugged gaps post that final loss, bringing in leg spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav as attacking options in middle overs. Having shown confidence in his two spinners in the first game, Kohli is likely to use both the specialist wrist spinners in the match against Australia.
Apart from the clash with Australia, the Indian team management would want more depth in batting.
This is intact as of now, thanks to runs from KL Rahul at number four and Kedar Jadhav's contribution down the late middle order.
The return of Steve Smith and Warner has boosted Australia to a great extent.
The key will be to get the dangerous David Warner as quickly as possible, even though Australia bats deep down.
