The other major problem confronting the five wise men would be the composition of the pace bowling department which has been weakened by the heel injury-induced absence of spearhead Zaheer Khan who is not available for the series as well as the one-off Twenty20 international against hosts Australia preceding it on February 1.

Dravid lost his place in the one-day squad controversially after a string of poor scores against Australia in the home series preceding the one against Pakistan, but since then has opened in Tests Down Under and seems to have rediscovered a bit of his form.

More importantly the lack of form of Yuvraj Singh has left a huge hole in the middle order. Virender Sehwag, who has opened the innings in the Perth Test with some success, has also come back into the reckoning for the ODIs.  However, Robin Uthappa and Rohit Sharma are expected to be included though players like S Badrinath, Manoj Tiwari, Suresh Raina and Cheteshwar Pujara are likely to be discussed.

If he’s fit, pacer S Sreesanth, sidelined from the Test series in Australia because of a shoulder injury, and third opener Gautam Gambhir are expected to board the flight to Australia along with left-arm spinner Murali Kartik. But there’s a question mark over right-arm pacer Munaf Patel.

RP Singh, Ishant Sharma and Irfan Pathan are near-certain to retain their spots and form the core of the pace department.