Australia needs to turn around topsy turvy form to win

GOA, India - To win the one-day series against India tomorrow and head home with a large chunk of its cricket reputation intact, Australia will have to put an end to the up and down trend which has marked the previous four matches.

Not only have the teams alternated wins in the four matches to date, they have taken turns about giving each other a decent hiding.

Ahead of tomorrow's decider in Goa, both captains summed up the series as typifying the nature of the limited overs game.

"Your form runs hot and cold - that's one-day cricket," Steve Waugh said after Tuesday's 93-run win in Visakhapatnam.

Sourav Ganguly agreed, saying "each team has played well on one particular day - one-day cricket is all about that.

"It also shows how both sides can come back well after defeats."

Where Australia may have the edge is the desire to salvage something from a tour which has seen them lose a Test series 2-1.

They've also had their world record Test winning streak halted at 16 as well as seeing the back of a 10-game unbeaten run in one-dayers.

Following a humiliating defeat in Indore last weekend which put them 2-1 down in the series, the Australians vowed to come out on top.

"We've got a lot of pride in our performance," Waugh said.

"We're not the world champions for nothing - after that match we decided we were going to fight really hard.

"We were disappointed in our batting in the third game and we all decided we'd give it our best shot in the last two games.

"If India are going to beat us they're going to have play pretty well."

The Aussies proved that in the fourth game, posting their second best score in one-day history to trounce India by a flattering 93 runs.

It was such a commanding performance from the Australians, it's hard to see any alterations to the winning team despite Waugh saying last week the team would make three changes for every game.

Ian Harvey, Andrew Symonds and Darren Lehmann all missed the fourth game and under the rotation policy should come back into the team.

So far, Waugh, Adam Gilchrist, Michael Bevan, Damien Martyn, Damien Fleming and Glenn McGrath have played all four games and any combination could be rested but Martyn and Fleming loom as two likely candidates.