aussies look to stop the defeat

Continuous losing in professional sport brings the worst out of people. Especially in Test cricket where individuals can perform outstandingly and still lose, where a match doesn't end for five days and tours go on for months, where you are stuck with the same faces preparing for the same results.

It brought the worst out of India when they were in Australia. They kept on picking the same failing batsmen, kept on batting in the same order, waited for some higher power to authorise the firings, and hoped that past glory will miraculously pull them out of the hole.

If India sleepwalked, as if on sedatives, through the losses, Australia have been behaving as if on crack. The thing they have been wielding is not so much an axe as it is a chainsaw. Nathan Lyon experienced it after the first Test, losing out to a limited-overs spinner. Now four others are out for discipline issues that the team management says have been accumulating.

Australia have made it clear that failing to show intent, discipline and subordination in team meetings is a bigger sin than not scoring a run off spinners or under-bowling a fast bowler on fire and over-bowling him into dust when he is not or making poor selections or failing to reverse-swing the ball.

The first set of things is what they can control, the latter depends more on skill and the application of that skill, which is not always in their control. Even if Australia lose every match on the trip, and there is a strong likelihood they will, they perhaps want to know they tried everything in their control.

There's not much left in their control, though: they might have only 12 men left to choose from, Steven Smith and Brad Haddin could be playing in the top six, but it's fair to say they will rather be on the field than in front of a green backdrop with strings of VB and Cricket Australia logos in the press conference room.

Form guide

India WWDLL (Last five matches, most recent first)
Australia LLWWW

Watch out for...

Phil Hughes will be aware he is allowed to sit in this test only because some others have been asked to stand outside the class for the next period. Hughes has faced 39 balls from spinners this series, and has been out four times without scoring a run. That spin barrage is not likely to stop any time soon. It will be interesting to see how he counters it.

Michael Clarke has finally decided to move up in the order in an attempt to prevent fires as opposed to doing all the firefighting with fewer specialist batsmen for company. You can seen, though, why Clarke wanted to cling on to No. 5: he averages 64 and 51 at Nos. 5 and 6, and only 22 and 25 at 4 and 3. We are not sure yet where exactly he will bat, but he has made the decision for the good of the team.

This will be Ishant Sharma's 50th Test. He averages 38.52 with the ball. No specialist bowler who has played 50 Tests has ended with an average that bad. Looking at India's pace resources, Ishant still has time to correct this statistic. Mohali at least should provide him more help than the two earlier pitches.

praveen kumar set for return

Praveen Kumar is set to return to competitive cricket after the BCCI lifted his suspension over the charge of misconduct during the Corporate Trophy and let him off after a month but not before giving the Indian medium pacer a severe reprimand for the incident. Kumar pleaded guilty after the BCCI issued him a show cause notice in February and now the board's disciplinary committee has decided to let him off giving a stern reprimand not to indulge in such misbehavior in the future. 

"BCCI has lifted the suspension and the president has decided to let Praveen off with a warning this time. The members felt that the month-long suspension was punishment enough. He had missed domestic games," a top BCCI official was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. "Praveen has been told in no uncertain terms that any kind of misbehavior henceforth will not be tolerated," the official added. 

Kumar had abused Ajitesh Argal and made intimidating advances during the match between ONGC and Income Tax despite the repeated warnings by the on-field umpire. The match referee, Dhananjay Singh, charged him with a fine of hundred percent match fee and further wrote a letter to the board terming him "mentally unfit". The BCCI issued a show cause notice and barred him to play in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Kumar will now feature in Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament which starts from March 17, 2013. 

competitive pitch awaits teams in mohali

Australia have been promised a "competitive" pitch at Mohali, venue of the third Test beginning March 14, unlike the turners at Chennai and Hyderabad where they were mauled by Indian spinners. 

The track prepared for the match will suit both the bowlers and the batsmen and the organisers expect the game to go the full distance. 

"The wicket at the PCA ground will not be of the same character (as it was in Chennai and Hyderabad). The pitch here will be good for both the sides. It will not bring out a one-sided result as has happened in the first two matches," said PCA Secretary M.P. Pandove. 

"It will suit both the batsmen and the bowlers. The ball will come on to the bat nicely and there will be enough assistance for the pacers. The spinners will come into play later on. We would like to have real good cricket here," Pandove added. 

India completely outplayed the visitors in the first two Tests, winning by eight wickets in Chennai and by an innings and 135 runs in Hyderabad. 

PCA president I S Bindra said that the groundsmen in Mohali have made a "competitive pitch". 

"We have done exactly this (made a competitive pitch) so that spectators also enjoy and players also put in their best," he said. 

Mohali has traditionally helped the seamers in the initial stages of the match before it becomes a good batting track. The spinners generally get some assistance towards the end of the fourth day. 

The PCA Stadium has been a happy hunting ground for India, who have lost just one match of the 10 Tests played here. They have won four while five matches ended in draws. 

New Zealand have recorded the highest score of 636/6 declared in a drawn match against India in 2003 while the lowest ever score was registered by the hosts in 1994 when they were bowled out for a paltry 114 in the second innings against the West Indies while chasing 358. 

Bindra, meanwhile, said since PCA wants more spectators to come for the match, tickets prices have been kept low. 

"Other centers have also started adopting our policy," he added. 

Pandove further said that for attracting youngsters, the rate of the tickets for the students have been priced as low as Rs 150 for five days. 

"The cricket academies in the tri-city -- Chandigarh Mohali and Panchkula -- will be given a discount of 25 per cent so that they can accommodate the poor trainees who cannot even afford the cheap tickets," he added. 

The air-conditioned lounge tickets have been priced at Rs 4,000, box seat at Rs 5,000, VIP enclosure Rs 750 and Chair Class Rs 250, Pandove informed, adding that the sale of tickets will commence on Friday. 

clarke need some assistance

Australia's wicketkeeper Matthew Wade has said the batsmen need to find the right balance between patience and aggression if they are to give Michael Clarke the support he needs to turn the Test tour of India around. Clarke has scored more than twice as many runs as any other member of Australia's top six during the first two Tests and will move up the order from No.5 for the third Test in Mohali in an effort to exert greater influence on Australia's batting innings.

More than a quarter of Australia's runs in the series have come off the bat of Clarke but only two batsmen have accompanied him for meaningful partnerships, Moises Henriques, in a 151-run stand in Chennai, and Wade for a 145-run partnership in Hyderabad. That ended when Wade cut a catch to backward point off Harbhajan Singh for 62, the ball after a missed stumping, and Wade said he knew he had thrown away a chance to really influence the game.

"Michael has had to score a truckload of runs for us," Wade said. "I felt very disappointed when I got out in this Test match. We'd put on nearly 150 runs and we were both really going. If I could have hung around with him, it could have been endless. Individually we'd like to stick around with him and help him out a little bit more and take the pressure off him. But I'm sure he's going to keep scoring runs no matter what."

For most of Australia's batsmen getting starts has not been the problem, but rather finding a way to stay at the crease long and push through to a much longer innings. In some cases they have fallen trying to force some runs to relieve pressure, while in other instances they have found themselves too tentative. Achieving the right balance is a fine art that the Indian batsmen have mastered in this series.

"Getting a boundary away or playing a scoring shot relieves the pressure a little bit," Wade said. "It's hard work to try to stay mentally in your game plan and not go away from that when the spinners are bowling really well. One thing that I definitely saw in the first innings [in Hyderabad] is when you do get on top, things start to happen a lot quicker. You can go from 20 to 50 quickly in these conditions.

"We might have to be a little bit more aggressive at times to get India to do something different because if they get into a rhythm and just bowl dot after dot, the game's not going anywhere for us. We're just sitting ducks. We've got to try to be a little bit more aggressive and put the pressure back on their bowlers."

However, in some cases when the Australians have tried to do just that it has cost them their wickets. Two Tests in to the series, the batsmen are starting to realise just how difficult the Indian conditions can be in Test cricket, which is a new experience for all but Clarke and Shane Watson among the batting group. Wade said the first two Tests had "definitely" been a wake-up call for the batsmen, who had a centre-wicket practice session on the Hyderabad pitch on what should have been day five of the Test.

"The West Indies [2012 tour] was similar to these kinds of conditions, big-spinning wickets, hard to score, good spinners, good quicks bowling reverse," Wade said. "Coming from Australian conditions to these conditions is a massive difference and it has taken a little bit of time to adapt. But that's no excuse. We had two trials games where our batters got good innings and our bowlers had a good bowl.

"We were a little bit flat [after the loss] but training has helped the mood, to get out there and start honing our skills again. Going to a ground day five when you were supposed to be playing, it's not a great result when you are there training, but everyone was pretty focused individually on how to get better. The bigger thing is that as a team we need to get better so as the training session went on people got a little more relaxed and came out of their shell."

nawab of najafgarh dropped from remaining tests

Virender Sehwag has been dropped from India's Test side for the first time since he made an emphatic comeback to the long format with a century in Adelaide in 2008-09. That, incidentally, remains his last century outside Asia. No replacement has been named for Sehwag for the remaining two Tests of the series against Australia, which makes Shikhar Dhawan a favourite to open in the Mohali Test starting on March 14

The two remaining Tests of the current series, which India lead 2-0, are the last ones they are scheduled to play before they go on four continuous overseas tours beginning with South Africa later this year.

In his first reaction, Sehwag - who had been dropped from the ODI side for the series against England in January - tweeted: "Will continue to work hard for my place in the team. I trust my game and am confident that, 'I'll be back.' Best wishes to the team."

Since his comeback, Sehwag's performance outside Asia might have been questionable, but he kept his place in the side with typically dazzling match-winning knocks on the lower and slower tracks. Outside Asia, since Adelaide, Sehwag has scored just 523 runs in 12 Tests, at an average of 22.73 with a highest of 67. In Asia, though, over the same period he has amassed 3622 runs at 57.49, at a game-changing strike rate of 94.1.

However, over the last two years, the big innings began to dry up even in Asia. After his 173 against New Zealand in Ahmedabad in November 2010, he had to wait more than two years for another Test century. In November 2012, Sehwag earned another lease of life with a typical century against England again in Ahmedabad but, between then and being dropped, he has had scores of 25, 30, 9, 23, 49, 0, 2, 19 and 6.

This is a big fall for India's most prolific opening combination in Tests: Gautam Gambhir was dropped before the start of the Australia after three years without a Test century. Now India are possibly looking at a raw opening combination going into South Africa.

Not even naming a replacement opener is a big statement made by selectors who don't seem to have other options available but have still gone ahead and omitted him. Dhawan, his Delhi team-mate, is now a front-runner for Mohali, but Ajinkya Rahane can't be ruled out either. Sandeep Patil, the chairman of selectors, did say before the start of the England series that Rahane was picked as a middle-order batsman, but the Indian team management has been flexible and doesn't always stick to statements made in the press.

India squad: MS Dhoni (capt. & wk), M Vijay, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Dinda, Cheteshwar Pujara.