India A’s fringe seamers face an audition as the Australia A one-day series opens in Puducherry

India A open their one-day series against Australia A in Puducherry on Tuesday with a pace attack selected to be tested rather than protected

The 1st unofficial ODI begins at 2pm IST at the Cricket Association Pondicherry Siechem Ground, which has staged every fixture of this tour. Ruturaj Gaikwad captains the home side, with Devdutt Padikkal as his deputy.

India A come into it having taken the four-day leg 1-0, winning the first unofficial Test by 162 runs before the second was drawn. Shams Mulani was named player of that series.

The timing gives these three one-dayers an edge they would not otherwise carry. India's senior selection panel is sitting this week to choose the squads for the tour of New Zealand, which runs from 22 October to 1 December.

Three seamers with something to prove

The squad is heavy with batting, but the interest is in the bowling. Gurjapneet Singh, Arshad Khan and Yash Thakur form a seam group picked for a look rather than as a reward, and all three have conceded under six an over across their List A careers.

Gurjapneet and Arshad are left-arm and Yash Thakur right-arm, which gives Gaikwad angles to work with at a ground where the surfaces held up for the batters through both four-day matches.

Arshad bowled well at the death on India A's tri-series trip to Sri Lanka and offers runs down the order, a combination the senior one-day side has been short of.

Pandya's absence reshapes the all-round slot

The series had been framed around Hardik Pandya, who was named in the original squad and then withdrawn with a shin problem. Reports in India said he had not been pain-free while bowling.

Pandya has not played competitive cricket since an injury during IPL 2026 in May, and has not appeared in an ODI since the Champions Trophy final in March 2025.

Suryansh Shedge came in as the replacement. The 23-year-old Mumbai all-rounder has three T20I caps and 15 List A appearances, and made a career-best 72 from 66 balls for India A against Sri Lanka A in June.

A top order stacked with international caps

Gaikwad, Padikkal, Sai Sudharsan and Rajat Patidar have all played for India, and Priyansh Arya joins them at the top of the order.

Kumar Kushagra and Prabhsimran Singh are the two wicketkeepers in the party. Kushagra made 113 in the first innings of the opening four-day match and took the match award, so the gloves are not a settled question either.

Nishant Sindhu, Vipraj Nigam, Arshin Kulkarni and Anukul Roy complete a squad carrying both spin and seam-bowling all-round cover.

Australia A move on a man lighter

Australia A finish the tour without Sam Harper, whose 128 in the drawn second four-day match earned him the match award and then a call into Australia's Test squad in Durban as cover for the injured Josh Inglis.

The one-day party still carries Test-capped players in Sam Konstas and Nathan McSweeney, alongside Will Sutherland, Todd Murphy, Tanveer Sangha, Ben Dwarshuis, Spencer Johnson, Riley Meredith, Mitch Owen, Mahli Beardman, Nikhil Chaudhary and Liam Scott.

Josh Philippe and Lachlan Shaw share the wicketkeeping duties for the 50-over leg, with Harper gone and Peter Handscomb involved only in the first-class fixtures.

What the next week decides

India travel to New Zealand for two Tests, five ODIs and five T20Is, and it is the one-day element of that trip where the pace places look least settled.

Three matches in six days against a touring side of this standard is as close to a trial as the domestic calendar offers before the squads are named.

The second and third one-dayers follow at the same ground on 9 and 11 October.

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