Having managed to halt the Australian juggernaut in its tracks
at Chandigarh, India will seek to carry the momentum when they go into
the fifth cricket one-dayer here tomorrow, hoping to level the seven-match series.
The eight-run victory over Ricky Ponting's men and the semi-final
win over the Aussies in the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa last month
clearly indicated that when put under severe pressure, even a champion team
can feel the heat and fumble.
This is exactly the kind of situation that captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni
and his team would be aiming to put the visitors in again when
the two clash in another high-voltage tie in front of a capacity 20,000-crowd
at the Reliance Stadium here.
If India manage to turn the tables here again, they would have
beaten Australia in two successive games for the first time in six years.
But to achieve that, they need to show the sort of aggression
they displayed in South Africa and in the fourth ODI two days ago.
A pointer to how rattled the Australian captain was when Dhoni
and Robin Uthappa took the attack to the visitors is the fact that the visitors'
best bowler on view - speedster Brett Lee - did not complete his quota of overs
despite having given away very few runs in his first spell.
The match will assume importance for Sachin Tendulkar as it will mark
his 400th appearance in one-dayers and the star batsman will be keen to make
it memorable.
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