 The fourth ODI between India and Australia will be played at Mohali on
Monday. The Indians won the third ODI at Delhi thanks to the huge century run
partnership between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh and that enabled
the Indians to take a 2-1 lead in the series. There are four more games to go
in the series.
Click for Live Score Card of India vs AustraliaIf the Delhi wicket was an up and down, low and slow kind of a wicket, then,
the one at Mohali will favour the batsmen at this time of the year. The ball
will come on to the bat and the batting will be much easier, with the scores
of 300 plus not a difficult target to achieve. However, with the dew becoming
a factor, the Aussies will know that batting second could prove to be an advantage
if the wickets are held.
The Indians will need their opening partnership to fire. In all the three games
one or the other from Virender Sehwag or Sachin Tendulkar has got out
early, and this has meant that most of the work has had to be done by the middle
order. MS Dhoni has done a great job in the middle, having scored a hundred,
an unbeaten half century and a 34 to boot, which means that the Aussies will
need to take special care about the Indian middle-order. With Yuvraj Singh
also coming into the fold, it will be interesting to see how the Aussies manage
to do the containing job against the resurgent Indian side.
The Indian bowling has been doing reasonably after the first game. Praveen Kumar bowled extremely well in both the games - second and third - whereas
the Indian spinners look to be coming out in full strength now. Harbhajan Singh,
who looks to have lost his confidence slightly, is also struggling, but came
out with a decent performance in the third game, while Ravindra Jadeja's presence
adds solidity to the spin bowling department, and on paper, to the batting as
well.
Aussies have lost Brett Lee for the series. It remains to be seen whether
James Hopes gets back to his full fitness for this game, but with only
one day's break between the two games, it will be an interesting finish. From
the batting's perspective, the Aussies will need to reshuffle their batting,
and even change it around. Getting in Shaun Marsh will not be a bad idea, as
for now, it does not look to be as strong as it should.
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