Sachin Tendulkar's return to prime form on his comeback may ring alarm bells in the rival camp but India desperately need to plug the bowling loopholes when they take on Australia in the DLF Cup cricket tri-series in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.
Tendulkar cracked a scintillating unbeaten 141 in the first match against the West Indies, not only proving that he had plenty of cricket left in him but also silencing his detractors for atleast some time.
The Mumbai batsman gave glimpses of his sublime form by blasting 13 boundaries and five sixes during his knock which is bound to leave the Australians, who have been at the receiving end of his fury on a number of times in the past, a trifle worried.
While Tendulkar's return to form after an injury-induced layoff of nearly six months is heartening news for the Indian camp, the form of the frontline bowlers is a worrying factor for the team.
After being done in by the Duckworth-Lewis method in the rain-hit match against West Indies, who were declared winners by 29 runs, the Indians will be under more pressure now.
Rahul Dravid and his men may feel that they were distinctly unlucky to lose the match after scoring 309 for five and considering that the West Indies had collapsed like a pack of cards after a solid start against Australia, but they have no option but to put the defeat behind them and focus on the next game at the Kinrara Oval.
The Indian team management may again opt to go in with a five-pronged bowling attack instead of relying on part-timers to perform the fifth bowlers role.
But pacemen Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel and RP Singh, who have been highly indiciplined and ineffective, will have to come up with an improved show to contain the rampaging Australians.
Captain Dravid has acknowledged that his bowlers were much too inconsistent in the opening match against the Caribbean team.
"We could have bowled better in the first 20 overs. We needed to pitch the ball in the right areas. We will have to improve on that," Dravid said.
Yuvraj Singh, a key component in the one-day squad, is expected to return to the team after sitting out the first match because of fever. The return of Yuvraj may mean that Mohammed Kaif will be left out.
The Australians, on their part, are in no mood to take the Indians lightly, especially after Tendulkar's remarkable return.
"Sachin is the best player I have seen and the best player I have played against. He has a good record against Australia and when I look at his overall record, something like 75 hundreds in international cricket, that is just an amazing statistics", Australian captain Ricky Ponting said.
"He's obviously a world class player and having him back at the top of their order makes India even more formidable", he said.
The Australians are keen to try out some of their fringe players in this tournament and it is quite likely that they will continue to experiment in tomorrow's day-night encounter.
The strongly-built Matthew Hayden, who has the habit of tormenting India with his big knocks, is likely to get a chance after sitting out the first match.
The presence of Hayden at the top of the order and captain Ponting at number 3 means that India's new ball bowlers have absolutely no margin for errors.
The match will be played on an adjacent strip since the pitch for the India-West Indies game had an uneven bounce.
Dravid fell leg before to Dwayne Smith early in the innings while Virender Sehwag and Mahendra Singh Dhoni were out bowled -- all to balls, which kept low.
The matter forced ICC Match Referee Chris Broad to issue a statement to the effect that the unreliable bounce was a result of a 'fault' in the pitch and that next two matches would be played on the adjacent strip.
The teams (from):
India: Rahul Dravid (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Irfan Pathan, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, M S Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Mohammad Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, R P Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Rudra Pratap Singh, Munaf Patel, Dinesh Mongia, S Sreesanth, Ramesh Powar.
Australia: Ricky Ponting (captain), Michael Hussey, Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark, Michael Clarke, Mark Cosgrove Dan Cullen, Brad Haddin, Mathew Hayden, Brad Hogg, Phil Jaques, Mitchell Johnson, Simon Katich, Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath, Damien Martyn, Andrew Symonds, S R Watson.
