India's pace spearhead Zaheer Khan said the key in restricting the rampaging Australian batting line-up in the sixth and penultimate one-day international in Nagpur on Sunday was to get early wickets and put pressure on the visitors.
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"We need to get early wickets to make inroads and put pressure on them. We did that at Chandigarh. There's no reason why we can't do it tomorrow," said the Mumbai-based left-arm pacer ahead of India's do-or-die tie.
"We have to stay positive. Each game is a fresh one. We got early breakthroughs in the first two games. Getting early wickets is important," said Zaheer who has had a torrid run in the series with only five wickets to his credit in as many ties at a high cost of 271 runs.
Australia were 2 for 18 in the series opener at Bangalore and 2 for 8 in the second tie at Kochi, but on both these occasions recovered brilliantly to notch scores above 300.
The tourists are leading the rubber 3-1 and a victory here will help them wrap up the series ahead of the last tie at Mumbai on October 17.
But Zaheer did not think that the surfeit of left arm pace bowlers in the Indian attack, with R P Singh and Irfan Pathan completing the trio, was too one-dimensional as all of them were different types of bowlers.
"As a left arm bowlers we give different angles to the right handed batsmen. We have three and it's good. I don't think that the attack is without variety as all three of us have different styles of bowling. Even if we were all right-handers, we can provide variations," Zaheer said.
