The needle that has characterised Indo-Australia cricket in recent times has spilled over to unnecessary bad blood. It will need the sagacity and cool-headedness of Ricky Ponting and Mahendra Singh Dhoni to ensure that Friday's third one-dayer at the impressive Rajiv Gandhi International stadium here does not degenerate into war minus the shooting.

Verbals flew thick and fast during Australia's 84-run victory in Kochi on Tuesday. From the outside, it appeared as if the Indians were the sole culprits, but that is far from the truth. Australia are past masters at the art of not-so-subtle needling, an art India are some distance away from becoming experts at. Saying that, it is in the best interests of both teams, as well as cricket itself, that battles are restricted to between bat and ball, and the lip is given the go-by so that a semblance of normalcy is restored.

Buoyed by their exceptional all-round display two days back, Australia will start strong favourites on the morrow, but there is something about a backs-to-the-wall scenario that pumps the Indian team up like nothing else. Over the years, India have been at their most dangerous when they have been discarded as no-hopers. It's too early in the series – the scoreline only reads 0-1 – to start to panic, but there is no doubting which team will enter the field in a better frame of mind, come Friday.

The feel-good factor permeating through the Aussie ranks received a further boost with the news that skipper Ponting, fully recovered from his hamstring strain, is a near-certainty to assume charge of the World champions. Furthermore, the return from home of Nathan Bracken means the Australians have the option of putting out their first-choice pace attack.

At various stages over the last three weeks, Australia have missed Ponting's class and solidity at the top of the order, leaving the middle-order to not merely accelerate, but first focus on consolidation. The return of the best batsman on the planet today should ease the worries of the overworked middle-order a fair deal. Logically, Ponting should walk in for the beleagured Brad Hodge; given the Aussie way of thinking, it will not come as a huge surprise if the in-form other Brad – Haddin – is sat out on the reasoning that Hodge was an original choice for this tour, and Haddin wasn't.

The dice would appear loaded fairly heavily in favour of the Aussies, especially considering that India's problem areas are continuing to mount. For skipper Dhoni, the Twenty20 success no more than ten days back will most certainly appear a distant memory. The bowling in the middle and end overs has let the side down miserably, and in Kochi, India were also pegged back by the inability of the batsmen to piece together even one partnership of any substance.
Given that, despite fielding five bowlers India went for more than 300 in both of the first two games, there is every possibility that they will bolster the batting and return to the 7-4 formula that has worked wonders in the past, most notably at the 2003 World Cup. In that event, offie Ramesh Powar will be the man to lose out.
The Rajiv Gandhi stadium surface threw up no hints that it would aid the tweakers. Hard and firm, it will offer something for batsmen willing to play their strokes after playing themselves in, as well as the quicker bowlers who can hit the deck. What that could mean is a return to the playing eleven of left-arm paceman Rudra Pratap Singh, most likely at the expense of the excitable, seemingly uncontrollable S Sreesanth.

Sourav Ganguly did have a long session with the bat and turned his arm over too at nets, but the hamstring is apparently still troubling him occasionally. Should he pull up fine, the former skipper will be a cinch to wend his way back, otherwise the 20-year-old Rohit Sharma will be in line for a one-day international debut following his impressive run at the Twenty20 World Cup.

The think-tank also briefly toyed with the idea of resting Rahul Dravid in the event of Ganguly being cleared to play. That would have been no more than an extension of the rotation policy aimed at keeping players fresh. The wisdom of sacrificing experience would appear to have dawned on the team management belatedly, but wisely.