India vs Australia - 4th Test match at Nagpur - Preview

[Mick]

New captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni promised India would cope with the "crucial" loss of banned top batsman Gautam Gambhir as they chase a Test series win against Australia from Thursday.

India will hand Tamil Nadu opener Murali Vijay his Test debut in the absence of opener Gambhir. Vijay has scored a double century against Maharashtra in Tamil Nadu's opening game in the Ranji trophy."Gambhir's absence will be crucial because he was the man in form and scored a lot of runs. A good start is what really matters and then you can capitalise on it to put a big score on the board," said Dhoni."Right now we are planning to go with newcomer Murali Vijay as he has been doing very well in domestic cricket. We have confidence in him and hopefully we will get the start we need," he added.

"We don't want to put pressure on him and want him to play his normal game. We know the opposition always tries to put pressure on a debutant."
Gambhir's loss is one of a number of distractions for Dhoni, who is playing his first match as full-time captain after Anil Kumble's retirement. The match will be ex-skipper Sourav Ganguly's last before retiring and VVS Laxman's 100th.
"I don't think these are distractions. It makes no difference whether I am a stand-in or regular captain," Dhoni said. "It's a big match but we don't want to put pressure on ourselves. We just need to stick to the basics."
Ponting said his team needed to be at their best if they want to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy.

"We pride ourselves in playing well in big games and this is certainly a big game. This is a great opportunity for all of us to stand up and play better cricket than we played in the first three Tests. "It's the one that we obviously have to win and I think looking back at last week (third Test), we all are pretty happy at the way we competed. The last three-and-a-half days we played very good Test match cricket."

Ponting said Gambhir's absence could affect India's chances of making a solid start. "Gambhir and Virender Sehwag have have been responsible for getting India off to a good start. Without him (Gambhir) it gives us an opportunity to put pressure on their middle order," he said.

Australia are preparing to give off-spinner Jason Krejza a baptism of fire by handing him his first cap. Skipper Ponting said Krejza, 25, was likely to make his debut at the new test venue on a pitch that he felt would assist spin later in the game. He would replace either leg-spinner Cameron White or one of the fast bowlers.

Teams:
India (From): Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Saurav Ganguly, Subramaniam Badrinath, Mahendra Singh Dhoni(w/c), Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel, Rudra Pratap Singh, Murali Vijay

Australia (From): Matthew Hayden, Simon Katich, Ricky Ponting(c), Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey, Shane Watson, Cameron White, Brad Haddin(w), Brett Lee, Jason Krejza, Mitchell Johnson, Stuart Clark, Doug Bollinger, Peter Siddle, Shaun Marsh