Less than two weeks are left for the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia. The series will start with the first Test match in Perth from 22 November. This time 5 Test matches will be played in the series, which means the excitement is more than before and the opportunities are even more. Team India for the series has been announced long ago and the Indian players will arrive within the next 2 days. A question has arisen in front of Team India regarding this series and the same question is also in front of host Australia. Its situation is even more serious than that of Team India. The question is – who will open?

Australia's problem is more serious than India's

Since the defeat in the Test series against New Zealand, there is a continuous discussion about who will get a chance with Yashasvi Jaiswal in the opening pair of the Indian team in the Perth Test. The reason for this is captain Rohit Sharma, whose playing in the first test is not decided at the moment. Rohit is going to become a father for the second time, due to which he may sit out of the first test. However, it is not clear at the moment whether this will happen or not, but Team India has to keep a backup opener ready for any situation. India has the options of Abhimanyu Easwaran and KL Rahul but both the batsmen failed in this role in the India A match.

Still, this problem for Team India is only for one test match because Rohit would have taken over the command of the team by the second test. This problem is facing Australia throughout the series. After the retirement of former legendary batsman David Warner, the Australian team is looking for the opening partner of Usman Khawaja. The team's veteran batsman Steve Smith had played the responsibility of opening against West Indies and New Zealand earlier this year but he did not get success and now he has again returned to his previous position of fourth number. In such a situation, everyone wants to see who Australia will give a chance to.

These 4 contenders could not impress

To find the answer to this question, the Australian Board gave a chance to 4 openers in the matches between India A and Australia A from whom to choose, but even in these two matches the team did not get the correct answer. He has two experienced and experienced options in the form of Cameron Bancroft and Marcus Harris but both of them could not perform well in this series. Brancroft could score a total of 19 runs in 4 innings and could not open the account twice. Whereas Marcus Harris had failed in the first match but in the first innings of the second match he strengthened his claim by scoring 74 runs.

Apart from these two, there are also options for two young batsmen who have not yet made their Test debut. In this, Australia A captain Nathan McSweeney looks stronger, who played two innings of 39 and 88 (not out) in the first match but came at fourth position. While opening in the second match, he could only score 14 and 25. The last option is 19-year-old Sam Constas, who is scoring a lot of runs in Sheffield Shield but could not do much against India A. While opening in the first match, his scores were 0, 1, but in the second match, coming at number four, his scores were 3 and 73 (not out).

Who will get the chance?

That means no batsman could make an impact in the opening. Only Marcus Harris's innings of 74 runs came while opening the match. However, Marcus Harris has played 5 Tests against India and while opening, he could score only 301 runs in 10 innings, in which there were 2 half-centuries. In such a situation, is his claim strong? Or does the Australian selection committee gamble on one of the youngsters between Constas and McSweeney? Its decision can be taken on Sunday 10 November or Monday 11 November, when Australia selector George Bailey will announce the team for the series.