Lucky loser Taro Daniel will replace Nadal in the second round against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Batting maestro Virat Kohli hogged the front pages with the Hindi headline Yugon Li Ladai (Fight For The Ages), while young batting sensation Yashasvi Jaiswal was hailed as Navam Raja (The New King) in Punjabi.
Australia's Travis Head and Steve Smith gave India a repeat of their nightmare in the World Test Championship (WTC) final.
Shafali Verma managed just 108 runs in six matches this year with 33 being the highest.
'He is a great player not scoring enough runs & that's the crux of it.'
India put up a dismal show with the bat as Australia stamped their superiority over the visitors with a five-wicket win in the first Women's ODI in Brisbane on Thursday.
Shubman Gill's thumb fracture is certainly a "jolt" for India ahead of the series opener against Australia
'Bumrah's 2024 exploits were a masterclass in skill, precision, and relentless consistency,' ICC said in a statement.
Rohit Sharma hailed the resilience of the lower-order batters after his team managed to salvage a crucial draw in the rain-hit third Test against Australia in Brisbane
Teenager Konstas to make debut in fourth Test against India
'What solution can Gambhir or Nayar possibly give, apart from telling him to not play those deliveries?'
Hazlewood missed the 10-wicket win over India in Adelaide on Sunday with the latest in a series of side strains that have blighted his career.
'He is your battering ram.' 'If you are not going to play him for all five Tests, then you reduce your chances of taking all 20 wickets.'
India will have to wait until day two to show their skills and may need early wickets to force a third consecutive result in the series.
India included two debutants -- Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy -- while leaving out Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
'It (the decision to pick Nitish ahead of Shardul) is also about moving forward and I feel that this is the best set of players that we have selected to do the job for the country.'
Shubman Gill has made far too many changes in his batting approach, which is hindering his run-scoring ability on away tours, feels former Australian captain Ricky Pointing
With a heavy downpour preventing the resumption of play after the break, the match was abandoned and the series remains locked at 1-1.
Boland is ready to step in once again for Josh Hazlewood, continuing the role of the perfect first substitute that has defined his 11-Test career.
India pacer Mohammed Shami has been ruled out of the last two Tests against Australia as he is yet to regain full fitness, the BCCI said on Monday.
'It will be unfair to say that he is out of form on the basis of two innings. He has already scored a hundred in this series. How many players have got a hundred in the series?'
McSweeney was dismissed by Bumrah four times across six innings and the Australia selectors have replaced him with teenage sensation Sam Konstas for the Melbourne and Sydney Test.
India pace bowler Akash Deep played down concerns over skipper Rohit Sharma's knee injury in the build-up to the fourth Test against Australia this week after the batsman was hit during a practice session on Sunday.
Maria Sharapova withdrew from the Brisbane International on Tuesday due to inflammation around her collarbone and the world No 2 is still unable to hit a serve just two weeks before the start of the Australian Open.
'Sundar is the front-runner behind Ashwin right now. He's done well in whatever limited opportunities he's got and I feel he will get his due first before going to anybody else.'
A dominant Australia hammered India by 10 wickets in the day-night second Test on Sunday to level the five-match series 1-1.
David Ferrer sent local favourite Bernard Tomic packing with an easy 6-3, 7-5 win in the opening round of the Brisbane International on Monday.
Ashwin acknowledged the emotional turmoil he was experiencing, despite his calm demeanour.
'The brain would always react first, he was an intelligent cricketer, a good thinking cricketer.'
The IOC said it would not organise the tournament in 2028, leading to fears the sport might be excluded from future Games.
History has not seen a cricketing rivalry as fierce as this this century, every ball bowled every run taken, coming with no quarter given. Ahead of India's five Test tour of Australia, Norma Astrid Godinho/Rediff.com takes a walk down memory lane, recounting India's sojourns Down Under from 1947 to 2021, in a 4-part series.
'We all knew he was dangerous, but that first shot he played off Jasprit Bumrah, that cover drive, off the front foot.' 'It told me that this is a player in prime, prime form.'
Indian cricket has produced a generational superstar in Yashasvi Jaiswal and will remain in good health even when Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma decide to call time on their careers, said former Australia World Cup winner Darren Lehmann.
There could be no place more appropriate for Djokovic to finally break free of his tie with Margaret Court on 24 Grand Slam singles titles than in her own backyard at Melbourne Park, where he has won the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup 10 times.
Reader Ajay Panwar met former Australian fast bowler Michael Kasprowicz at the University of Queensland.
Ravichandran Ashwin's wife Prithi Narayanan penned a heartfelt tribute for her husband following his recent retirement from international cricket, saying "it is time to set the burden of being you down" and embrace life beyond the game.
Bumrah bowled 53.2 overs at the MCG, the most he has ever bowled in a Test match.
Sourav Ganguly names Rishabh Pant as the next-best red-ball batter after stalwart Virat Kohli and predicts him to have a "huge impact" in the Border Gavaskar Trophy against Australia in Perth on Friday.
Australia captain Pat Cummins said it is a "privilege" to have a bowler of Mitchell Starc's calibre at his disposal.
India's World Cup-winning skipper Kapil Dev would like to know why Ravichandran Ashwin decided to call it a day all of a sudden.
