Chennai: Australian opener Aaron Finch is in doubt for the opening ODI of the five-match series against India as he is still recovering from a calf injury.
Finch injured his calf playing for Surrey in England six weeks ago. Since then, he has been working closely with physiotherapist Alex Kountouris in order to be fit for the series opener which would be played on Sunday in Chennai.
However, the 30-year-old aggravated his right calf during Australia's warm-up session at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Thursday and pulled out of the rest of the session to ice the muscle.
And it is speculated that Australia may turn to Travis Head or Hilton Cartwright if the star opener is ruled out of the series opener.
Earlier in the week, stand-in coach David Saker confirmed that Head has been earmarked to fill the vacant the number four position and with Finch's injury not series-ending, Cartwright may be used as a stop-gap opener until the swashbuckling opener is fit again, reports cricket.com.au.
Australia ODI squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Ashton Agar, Hilton Cartwright, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Patrick Cummins, James Faulkner, Aaron Finch, Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa.
India squad (first three ODIs): Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami.
ODI Fixtures:
September 17: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
September 21: Eden Gardens, Kolkata
September 24: Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore
September 28: M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
October 1: VCA Stadium, Nagpur
