India will get another chance to test their combinations before the seven-match one-day series when they face England Lions in a practice game here on Saturday.

The match against Scotland might have pleased the team think tank a lot as the one-day members, who joined the squad just four days ago, came up with a reasonable performance.

Pace bowlers Ajit Agarkar and Munaf Patel, whom skipper Rahul Dravid rated the players to push India forward in the one-day series, showed rustiness in Thursday's match, but the team management will take heart from their show, considering the fact that it was their first international game after a considerable gap.

Agarkar, though once again displayed his tendency to leak runs in the end, brought breakthroughs up front and his ability to dismiss frontline batsmen will play a major role in determining India's fortunes in the limited over series. The Mumbaikar, who had bowled at a good pace against Scotland, can pose a lot of challenges for the English batsmen, if he can control the swing of the ball.

Munaf was steady in his outing against Scotland and he seemed to have in his mind the thought of the lower back strain that he had suffered during the Bangladesh trip.

The pace bowler was reluctant to bend his back in the Scotland match and at times that affected his efforts in the outfield as well. Bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad has to do a job in this front as he has to help Munaf to get rid of the uneasy thoughts from his mind and prepare him for the grind ahead.

It is an important task because left-arm paceman Zaheer Khan has still not entirely recovered from a bruised heel, which forced him to skip the Twenty20 World Cup to be held in South Africa, and Munaf will have to play a huge role in India's campaign in this series.

Chawla impressive
Leg-spinner Piyush Chawla too was impressive in his first international match in nearly two months. The Uttar Pradesh lad, who fumbled initially, came up with a trademark tight spell that left the Scotland batsmen in a quandary.

The batsmen too were impressive against Scotland and Gautam Gambhir had impressed all with doughty show with the bat. The Delhi left-hander has the tendency to throw his wicket away when appears to be set for a big one, but on a tough wicket at Glasgow he had showed a lot more steel to last till the end to guide his team to win.

His partner at the pole position, Robin Uthappa, was also in fine fettle despite not playing an international game for a while now. The Karnataka batsman made fifty to keep himself in the eyes of the powers that be ahead of the one-day series. Yuvraj Singh, on his part, put behind the disappointment of not being part of the Test squad with a forceful innings that should give him a lot of confidence ahead of the one-day series.

The hunger showed by these youngsters should come as a delight for the team management, and they would definitely have taken a lot of positives from that game.

Their good outings had put the team management in a dilemma – a pleasant one at that – over the choice of team for the next game against the Lions and the return of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, who did not play against Scotland, will bolster the side.

The Lions, new name for England 'A', led by Vikram Solanki is a hodgepodge of county players who had shown good form this season and with a chance to make it to the England squad at some point of time.

They have two fine pacemen in James Anderson, who was impressive in the recent Test series against India, and Stuart Broad, who narrowly missed out a Test berth to Chris Tremlett, and they can be quite handful in the English conditions.

Besides Solanki, they have Ed Joyce and Owais Shah in their ranks to give strength to their batting. If the elements relent, the match should throw up some absorbing moments.

Teams (from): Indians: Rahul Dravid (capt), Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Kaarthick, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Ramesh Powar, Piyush Chawla, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Rudra Pratap Singh, Munaf Patel

England Lions: Vikram Solanki (captain), Kabir Ali, James Anderson, Gareth Batty, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Alex Gidman, Will Jefferson, Ed Joyce, Paul Nixon, Owais Shah, Michael Yardy.

Timings (IST): 1515 to 1845, 1930 to close of play.