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India vs Australia 2nd ODI: Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will be looking to make it count with the bat when India face Australia in the second ODI match at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday. The three-match series marked the return of both senior players to international cricket after a few months.

Virat and Rohit departed cheaply as India suffered a 7-wicket defeat in the rain-marred series opener in Perth on Sunday. The former skipper Rohit scored 8 runs, whereas Virat was dismissed by Mitchell Starc for 0. Much has been said about the limited game time Rohit and Virat have had before their professional return, but batting coach Sitanshu Kotak believes frequent rain interruptions prevented them from finding their rhythm.

Their last appearance for India was the final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 against New Zealand, which the Men in Blue won to lift the title in Dubai. Speaking to the media ahead of the second ODI against Australia in Adelaide, Kotak dismissed any talk of rustiness in the senior duo’s performances.

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"I don’t think so," Kotak said. They played IPL, and the preparations have been very good. Like I said, I felt the weather in the first game definitely because I think it would have been the same if Australia had batted."

"When you don’t know how many overs you are going to bat and it’s not easy to plan every like four or five breaks we had, every two overs you are going in, coming out, it’s difficult," he added.

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Kotak went on to mention that both Rohit and Kohli looked in good touch when they ground in the nets ahead of the second fixture against Mitchell Marsh-led Australia. "I think they both looked in very good touch to me. They really batted well yesterday," Kotak said. Notably, the veteran duo has already retired from Test and T20I formats and were last seen in action during the IPL 2025 for their respective franchises.

India's squad for ODIs vs Australia: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill (c), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kuldeep Yadav, Dhruv Jurel, Prasidh Krishna

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