James Hopes

India to take on Australia in crucial SCG ODI on Sunday

India will take on Australia in a crucial one-day encounter at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) here on Sunday, which could determine whether India or Sri Lanka will make it to the finals of the ongoing Commonwealth Bank series.

Sydney, Feb.23 : India will take on Australia in a crucial one-day encounter at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) here on Sunday, which could determine whether India or Sri Lanka will make it to the finals of the ongoing Commonwealth Bank series.

Australia with 22 points has already made it to the finals, while India with 13 points and Sri Lanka with six points have to still win one and both remaining encounters respectively to cement their place in the finals.

Both India and Australia are facing batting woes and struggling for consistency.

"We are doing well in bits and pieces. If they can be consistent that will be good," Dhoni said of his batters, as the team came out for their final practice session at the SCG on Saturday.

India have been experimenting with their batting order, but Dhoni insists that is not the reason for the batsman's problems.

"We are pretty much sure about the pattern of the batting order. One of the good things is that most of our batsmen adapt well at any position, so that really helps," the cricinfo website quoted him, as saying

Australian all-rounder James Hopes speaking on behalf of his team said: "You can call it bad batting or exceptional bowling. The wickets are slow and it takes a bit to get in for a batsman. The batsmen are not scoring a lot of runs given the conditions we are playing in where some of the pitches are low and slow."

Hopes felt that one advantage the Kangaroos were enjoying was the toss, with captain Ricky Ponting called it right on most occasions.

Hopes insisted that Australia would not be taking Sunday's game lightly.

"India have some of the form bowlers and class players like Sachin, Sehwag, and Yuvraj [Singh] have started to score runs. They will come hard knowing that if they beat us tomorrow they will be the form team going into the final. We will be trying to get the psychological edge tomorrow regardless of whether it is a high scoring or low scoring game," Hopes said.

With runs being the need of the hour, India might recall Sehwag at the expense of allrounder Praveen Kumar. As for Australia, with Brett Lee coming back after a two-game break, Mitchell Johnson is likely to sit out.

Teams

Australia (likely) 1 Adam Gilchrist, 2 Matthew Hayden, 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 Michael Clarke, 5 Andrew Symonds, 6 Michael Hussey, 7 James Hopes, 8 Brad Hogg, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Mitchell Johnson, 11 Nathan Bracken

India (likely) 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 Rohit Sharma, 5 Yuvraj Singh, 6 Mahendra Singh Dhoni, 7 Robin Uthappa, 8 Irfan Pathan, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Munaf Patel.

ANI