Sydney, Nov 27 (IANS): Australia captain Aaron Finch on Friday won the toss and elected to bat against India in the first ODI of the three-match series at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).

"We will bat first. It's great to have cricket back in Australia and to play in front of crowds will be nice," said Finch.

"The wicket looks good. Hopefully, we can put runs on the board and defend. Steve Smith is back and he replaces Mitchell Marsh," he added.

For India, Mayank Agarwal will open the innings alongside Shikhar Dhawan, informed India skipper Virat Kohli.

"It's important to start well as a team, we need to start strongly and set the momentum for the matches ahead. The preparations have been nice, we got some valuable time (on account of the quarantine)," Kohli said.

Manish Pandey, Shubman Gill, Shardul Thakur, T Natarajan, Sanju Samson and Kuldeep Yadav are the players who missed out on being part of the Indian XI.

Playing XIs

Australia: Aaron Finch(c), David Warner, Steven Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood

India: Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, Virat Kohli(c), Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Navdeep Saini.