India go into Tuesday's day-night VB tri-series match against Zimbabwe keen to settle the doubts that have surfaced after a pounding by Australia at WACA.
Sourav Ganguly's men have been in irresistible form this summer but Aussie pacer Brett Lee came back to his best form to give them a few bruised bodies and minds on Sunday.
Now the Indians must look to inflict a similar damage to the Africans in the last league match, not for any other reason but just to reassure themselves that all is well and they are ready for the first final against Australia in Melbourne on Friday.
Coach John Wright has asserted that his team would not be looking ahead for the finals yet and the two games at Perth were what they were concentrating on first. But it is difficult to believe that the Indians would have made nothing of the pummeling at the hands of the world champions.
India's strength all summer has been their batting and they would be keen to recover the poise at the cost of the Zimbabweans.
Zimbabwe have had nothing to show for their presence in the triangular series and are keen themselves to prove a point in the final league game of the series before they leave the Australian shores.
Materially it would make no difference, for Zimbabwe ceased being a factor in the tri-series a long time ago but there is pride to play for and fine-tuning to be done for future battles.
India would be keen for Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag to fall back into the groove for the two had been terrific before the last game.
VVS Laxman can always look back at his bank of runs and derive confidence but both Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly are short of runs -- a strange comment to make for the pile of runs have somewhat obscured their lack of big knocks in a few matches lately.
Dravid looks in good touch but has not had a big score in the last few matches while Ganguly's best remains his 82 in the first match against Australia in Melbourne on January 9.
Ironically, Sunday's game was not without its silver lining for the Indians as the tail batted with courage to add over 100 runs for the last four wickets.
The praise to the tail does not include Ajit Agarkar, though he does not seem to be a batsman who should come out at number eight, except for a few cynics who feel he is fit to bat only at number 15!
Agarkar cut a sorry figure yesterday needing 21 deliveries to go off the mark but his misery ended when he ran himself out to leave his mates exasperated in the dressing room.
Zimbabwe would like to win at least one game at the cost of the Indians who they ran close in their last two matches, losing at Brisbane and Adelaide by 24 and 3 runs respectively.
Their batting surely has started to come together with Sean Ervine, Stuart Carlisle and Grant Flower hitting their straps and even the bowlers have not allowed Australia to run up scores of 300 in the last two games -- a factor which would not have gone unnoticed by the Indians.
Indians would largely like to go into the game with the same eleven though the selection of left-arm spinner Murali Kartik cannot be a foregone conclusion.
Kartik has struggled to come to terms with the true nature of Australian wickets and despite Ganguly's assertion of his utility, the evidence of WACA is pretty unlikely to support his case.
Teams:
India: Sourav Ganguly (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Rohan Gavaskar, Ajit Agarkar, Irfan Pathan, Murali Kartik, Laxmipathy Balaji and Ashish Nehra.
Zimbabwe: Heath Streak (captain), Stuart Carlisle, Dion Ebrahim, Travis Friend, Tatenda Taibu, Andy Blignaut, Grant Flower, Raymond Price, Douglas Hondo, Sean Ervine, Visu Sibanda and Stuart Matsikenyeri.
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