14:30 local
09:00 GMT
India(probable): 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 MS Dhoni (capt./wk), 6 Suresh Raina, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Praveen Kumar, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Ashish Nehra.
Australia (probable): 1 Shane Watson, 2 Shaun Marsh, 3 Ricky Ponting (capt.), 4 Michael Hussey, 5 Cameron White, 6 Adam Voges, 7 Graham Manou (wk), 8 Mitchell Johnson, 9 Nathan Hauritz, 10 Ben Hilfenhaus, 11 Doug Bollinger.
Gambhir has been cleared to play and is likely to replace Virat Kohli, and it would be a surprise if India split Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar at the top.
It’s an easy selection for Australia - with 13 fit men, they have only to decide which two to keep out. Clint McKay has arrived in India, but he and Jon Holland are likely to sit out.
Pitch and conditions
Everyone who played the Champions League matches in Hyderabad loved the pitch: true and flat. And being in the southern part of India, Hyderabad should be relatively dew-free. The toss shouldn’t put any team at a major disadvantage.
Big Picture
Australia have no business being 2-2 in this series. Seven first-choice men out, followed by two of their replacements (Moises Henriques being the latest). Foreign conditions. Back-to-back matches, spread across the length and breadth of India, suggesting more a sightseeing tour than one of the cricketing variety. Bowlers struggling at the death. Big hitters absent. Horror of horrors, Andrew Symonds is being discussed again by the fans. Conventional wisdom suggests that cannot be a good sign for the Australian team. Look at the scoreline, though - Two wins each. Who told Australia they could compete once their players started going down one by one after the first ODI?
Two-all doesn’t mean this becomes a fresh three-match series, as MS Dhoni would suggest. Australia have simply lost too many players, which has made India the favourites though the Mohali loss puts the pressure back on the hosts. They will know losing the series in home conditions against an under-strength Australia will be an embarrassment; a 4-3 result won’t be much better received. All of which gives Australia added incentive to win on Thursday and take a step closer to the grand heist.
India have had their share of injury troubles, with Zaheer Khan out for the series and Gautam Gambhir missing the fourth ODI. But the selectors’ retaining the existing XV for the final three games suggests Gambhir’s injury is not serious, nor is Virender Sehwag’s. India need a win in Hyderabad to start their march towards 5-2, anything less than which should disappoint them. By the look of things right now, there are no excuses in sight either.
