Murali Vijay Krishna

Nagpur: Sourav Ganguly and Team India will be keen to regain the “Lost Frontier” when they take on Australia in the fourth and final Test starting here on Thursday.

The scars of 2004, when India lost the second Test at the VCA Stadium, thereby giving the Aussies their breakthrough win in the subcontinent, are still fresh in everyone’s mind and India would be only too happy to set the record straight.

However, except for the hosting association, everything is different from what it was four years ago.

To start with, it is not the visitors, but India, who have the upper hand going into the match. India are leading the series 1-0 and, like Viswanathan Anand against Vladimir Kramnik in the closing stages of their world championship match, need only a draw to regain the Gavaskar-Border Trophy.

Secondly, Shashank Manohar, the president of the host association, is now heading the Board of Control for Cricket in India. He was aligned with the opposing faction in 2004. Therefore, the chances of a green carpet being rolled out for the series decider have been ruled out. In fact, the match will be not played at the old VCA Stadium but at the brand new facility located on the outskirts of the city.

The only concern may be that no cricket of any level — except for selection trials to pick the Vidarbha Ranji Trophy team a month ago — has been played on the wicket. So nobody knows how good a wicket it is.

It may be Ganguly’s farewell Test and V.V.S Laxman’s 100th, but as far as cricket is concerned, all eyes will be on Murali Vijay Krishna, the replacement for Gautam Gambhir.

Dhoni has decided to throw in the youngster at the deep end by make him open the batting with Virender Sehwag. Surely, if he is good enough to be picked for the Indian team — he has scored 1505 runs at 47.03 in 19 first-class matches — he must be good enough to play.

But it will be a big task for Vijay, since the man he will be replacing is the highest run-getter in the series with 463 runs at a stunning average of 77.16.

What may go in Vijay’s favour is the Australian bowling. Australia have proved to be, so far at least, a shadow of the team that boasted of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist and Damien Martyn — who played crucial roles in their conquest of the “Final Frontier”.

Rahul Dravid, Nagpur ka damaad, did not turn up for the nets in the morning, raising concerns about his availability for the match. Dhoni, however, said that the former captain was “having flu” but “would be fit tomorrow”.

It is ironical that Australia should depend on their batting strength to topple the Indians since that was the situation the hosts have found themselves in for a long time, including during the historic 2001 series and their 2003-04 visit Down Under.

India succeeded in out-batting their formidable rivals on those occasions. Whether Ponting’s men could do the same remains to be seen.

THE TEAMS

India (from): Virender Sehwag, Murali Vijay Krishna, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, V. V. S. Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, S. Badrinath, R.P. Singh.

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

Umpires: Billy Bowden and Aleem Dar TV: Suresh Shastri Match Referee: Chris Broad.

Match starts: 9.30am.