The 2026 T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka is the next major event on the horizon, but the three ODIs to take place in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth will be of similar significance and importance as it serves as crucial exposure against high-quality batting and bowling lineups for both teams.
For Indian supporters, it will be up to three more opportunities to cherish what they have left of seeing aging veterans Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, now retired from Tests and international T20s, in blue kits, especially as there are no guarantees they’ll be around for the 2027 ODI World Cup.
Even though Australia have already played six winter home internationals in the northern states, it’s now starting to feel like the ‘summer of cricket’ with the Indians down under!
Even after crunching the numbers and running our eyes over the stats and form, we’re finding it difficult to predict a winner without getting a look at these two squads, so we’ll instead recommend three player bets.
India’s Mr Consistent presents great value
He didn’t pile on enormous runs last time India visited Australia, but KL Rahul took on the tough task of opening alongside Yashasvi Jaiswal - a position he only occasionally filled for the Test team - but he did pretty well with half-centuries in Perth and Adelaide.
He then sparkled as India’s second top-scorer in the tour of England against another excellent bowling attack before a 176* for India A and 196 runs in three innings against the West Indies.
That was all against the red ball, but he has nonetheless been in excellent touch over the last 12 months and fulfilled a handy middle order role at the ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai with scores of 41*, 23, 42* and 34*.
Boasting a proven record against some of the bowlers he’ll expect to face in this series - such as 122/3 against Mitchell Starc in white ball internationals and 89/1 against Josh Hazlewood - everything points towards him putting in a good shift here.
It might be worth exploring the many batting and player performance markets and backing KL to be amongst the runs.
Australia’s captain leads from the front
The Bison has been near-unstoppable lately!
The Aussie dual-format white ball captain shredded their quickfire T20I tour of New Zealand with 85 and 103* from his two full innings off the back of a century and two fifties across the six white ball games against South Africa back in August, the latter of which seems an eternity ago.
Since he made his Australia captaincy debut in Aug-Sept 2023 with 92* and 79* in a pair of T20Is away to South Africa, his batting output tapered off, but his recent break from the game appears to have done him a world of good.
Marsh now averages a very impressive 38.88 across both formats as Australia’s captain and scored at least 40 runs in four out of his seven ODI innings away to India in 2023, which was the last time he took them on in either limited overs formats.
There’s no better place than his beloved Optus Stadium in Perth to start a new series, where Marsh has accumulated 289 runs from just eight innings across all international formats (average of 41.28) in addition to his BBL average of 36.30 from ten innings.
He has spoken repeatedly of the love he feels from the Western Australian crowd and the positive impact it has on his game, so with that and his recent form in mind, we advise taking him to score 30+ runss.
Prediction: Mitch Marsh 30+ runs
Could rusty Rohit struggle in Australia again?
38-year-old Rohit Sharma has not played competitive cricket since the 2025, and whilst nobody can dispute his professionalism and the effort he would have put in to stay sharp and fit during a five-month hiatus, coming up against Australian bowlers on the fastest pitch in the country is a tough reintroduction to the top level.
Rohit’s previous visit to Australia was nothing short of disastrous and it saw him sensationally drop himself from the India XI during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in response to a sensationally poor run of just 31 runs from five innings, although at least his five dismissals all came at the hands of two bowlers (Pat Cummins and Scott Boland) he won’t be seeing this month.
It has been nearly seven years since his last ODI in Australia and between that Rohit also had a poor 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia with only one score of over 28.5 runs from six starts.
All up, that makes for just three scores of 30+ runs from 15 all-format innings in Australia this decade, and Perth is not an ideal place for a 38-year-old who has found his reaction times and decision making to be slower than it once was.
We’re hopeful of some vintage Rohit Sharma at some point in this series, but it may require some match practice and more helpful conditions after such a long time away.
