Flat Adelaide surface is best bet for Indian batsmen

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India go into the third game of the series having lost one and won one. They will play on the best batting surface in Australia but hopefully their confidence level in terms of batting is at the right place for them to succeed.

We saw it in the test series that after losing the first three tests the batting effort on a very good batting surface was very ordinary and that happens a lot with lack of runs behind you.

Hopefully, India can eradicate that bit because this will be very important to be successful in this game.

There is not a lot of gaps between teams and barring the Australian bowling, which is far superior than the other two, there is not much difference between the three teams.

The long Sri Lankan batting has looked very susceptible till Mathews played a very good knock but couldn’t see his side through.

This competition will go down to the wire and the team which sustains the physical and mental battle, will make it to the finals.

For India there could be a worry with Kohli’s fall at Perth. He has looked good in that batting line-up and hopefully recovers before the game because Kohli is the key to the fortunes of India in the tournament especially at the business end.

The Indians are talking of rotation and there is talk about Sachin getting rested but I doubt that will happen.

If one looks at Sachin’s career, if he is in a tournament he keeps playing. He gets better with more time in the middle and I don’t think he will be wanting to miss out on a batting surface in Adelaide and it will be difficult for Dhoni to have him out of the eleven if he wants to play.

There will be question mark on Sehwag’s form. His inconsistency in the ODI format baffles all and the question he needs to ask himself is that, is he taking enough care and showing enough determination in his approach to succeed in the ODI format. I agree with Dhoni about rotation and personally feel that it is important to play Manoj Tewari.

Because the message which is going to the young guy at present is that a hundred scored under pressure is not good enough to get you another five games in a batting unit where there hasn’t been many hundreds scored of late.

That’s why I feel he should get an opportunity ahead of Raina as because the teams are bouncing out Raina too many times and he is getting out in the same manner again and again.

Australia will not play Hussey for this game to give young Forrester a game along with Mitchell Marsh.

So there is an opportunity for India to quickly open up the Aussie middle-order looking at Ponting and Clarke’s form so far in this ODI series.

One can make out that the Aussies are wanting to bring in more young players in all the formats and for me it’s an example for India to follow.