Australia v India, CB Series, 10th game, Sydney
Lee and Sehwag return as Australia bat
The Bulletin by Peter English
February 24, 2008
Toss *Australia chose to bat v India
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Brett Lee is back in Australia’s XI after spending the past two games resting © Getty Images
Ricky Ponting gave his top order an immediate chance to fix their problems by winning the toss and batting against India at the SCG. While the tourists are desperate to win and virtually seal a spot in the best-of-three finals, Australia’s main aim - they have already qualified for the deciders - is for their batsmen to rediscover their form over the next week.
Ponting, Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds have had disappointing results in a series that has not favoured the big hitters and they have two games to fine-tune before things get serious. “There’s no grass on the pitch, so it will probably slow up later on tonight,” Ponting said. “If we bat well we should have a good chance.” Brett Lee returns to his home ground after a two-match break while Mitchell Johnson has a rest ahead of the finals, which start in Sydney next Sunday.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who was disappointed to lose the toss, confirmed two changes for India, with Virender Sehwag, who has recovered from a hip strain, and Sreesanth coming in for Praveen Kumar and Munaf Patel, who has food poisoning. Only two preliminary fixtures remain after this one and India hold a six-point advantage over the third-placed Sri Lanka. If India win today Sri Lanka will need a miracle to overhaul them and would have to rely on bonus-point victories in their fixtures on Tuesday and Friday.
Australia 1 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 2 Matthew Hayden, 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Michael Clarke, 5 Andrew Symonds, 6 Michael Hussey, 7 James Hopes, 8 Brad Hogg, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Stuart Clark, 11 Nathan Bracken.
India 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 Rohit Sharma, 5 Yuvraj Singh, 6 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt, wk), 7 Robin Uthappa, 8 Irfan Pathan, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Sreesanth.
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Current score is 1/92…hayden and ponting are raping Indian bowling atack…
