India draw confidence from 2003

It's not often that a visiting team can draw confidence from a previous performance at an Australian venue, especially in recent years. But with one Test to play and the scoreline 2-1 in Australia's favour, the series moves to Adelaide for the final Test, a venue where India scored a thrilling win in 2003-04. However, leaving that blip aside, Australia have a formidable record at the Adelaide Oval, winning 12 out of 18 Tests since 1990, and eight out of nine since the draw against South Africa in 1998. Since their defeat against India, Australia have had convincing wins against New Zealand, West Indies and England.

Matthew Hayden has recovered from a thigh injury and his return will add considerable strength to the batting order. The third Test in Perth was the first that Hayden missed since 1999 and his absence was felt as Chris Rogers and Phil Jaques added only 12 and 21 for the first wicket at the WACA. Moreover, Hayden has a splendid record in Adelaide, where he has scored 722 runs at 55.53. In fact, all of Australia's top-order batsmen have excellent records in Adelaide: Michael Hussey averages 315 here for he's been dismissed only once while racking up scores of 133, 30, 91 and 61.

Among the Indian batsmen, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, who average 115.33 and 55.25 respectively, have performed well here, but Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly have failed. It was Dravid's 233 and Laxman's 148 that led India's revival in 2003 after they were struggling at 84 for 4 in the first innings. Tendulkar, however, has managed only 122 runs from six innings while Ganguly has 117 from four.

India's inexperienced pace attack exceeded expectations in Perth, which means it will be tough to leave out any of Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma or RP Singh to accommodate Harbhajan Singh, who could play a role on an Adelaide pitch that is expected to aid spin. In such a scenario, Wasim Jaffer could make way for Harbhajan with either Irfan Pathan or Rahul Dravid opening the batting. The table below shows the average partnership for each wicket in Adelaide since 1990 and, although Australia have higher figures, the overseas teams haven't done too badly either. The only significant difference is for the second wicket, where Ricky Ponting, at No. 3, has been a tremendous force for the home side.

Of Australia's bowlers, Brett Lee is the only one to have played more than one Test in Adelaide and his record isn't flash: he's picked up 12 wickets in three Tests at 36.75 apiece.

Pathan made his Test debut in Adelaide in 2003 and had a torrid match, finishing with figures of 1 for 160 and an economy rate of 4.70 per over. Anil Kumble has nine wickets from two Tests in Adelaide but has had to labour through 126 overs for them. His average of 42.88 and strike-rate of 84 indicate a success for perseverance rather than brilliance.

There's rain forecast for the first two days in Adelaide and the groundsman has said that the cloud cover could help the fast bowlers. However, batting first would be the way to go, for the average runs per wicket, for both Australian and visiting teams, have dipped steadily as the match progresses.