McGrath wants early showdown with Tendulkar

NAGPUR, India - Glenn McGrath will make an early start to his hunt for Sachin Tendulkar's scalp by asking to go head-to-head with the world's best batsman before the first cricket Test against India.

Having worked out, and conquered, Brian Lara over the years, McGrath asked for a close look at Tendulkar when Australia takes on India's champion state side Mumbai in its second warm-up game next week.

In the meantime, McGrath will be on the sidelines when Australia starts a three-day game against India here tomorrow.

Alongside him in the stands will be Shane Warne and Mark Waugh as the tour selectors opted to give a number of "under-done" players a chance to find form.

Coach John Buchanan said McGrath asked for a showdown with Tendulkar.

"Glenn is keen to look at Tendulkar close up - that'll happen in the next game," Buchanan said.

The move put Australia on the front foot in the battle to beat India in a series here for the first time in more than 30 years.

And it reverses a similar tactic used by Tendulkar on the previous

Australian tour in 1998 when the star batsman nominated himself to play an early tour game in order to gain a psychological edge over Australia, and Warne in particular.

He did that with a double-century in the opening tour match and Australia was almost defenceless against him for the rest of the series.

Buchanan said the opening match here would give Australia a chance to experiment with "a few different combinations".

He said Colin Miller, currently sporting a shaved down version of his show-stopping bright blue hair, would bowl some medium pacers as well as offspinners.

"Obviously he'll bowl his offspinners but we want to see how effective his medium pace might be," Buchanan said.

And Damien Martyn has been given an early chance to transform his one-day form into a potential Test spot after being handed the No.4 batting spot.

The move sets up Justin Langer and Martyn in what could be a head-to-head battle for Langer's place.

Langer - like opening pair Michael Slater and Matthew Hayden - has played very little first class cricket since the final Test against the West Indies in Sydney more than two months ago.

And during that series he was nowhere near his best form.

Martyn, on the other hand, has been playing some of the best cricket of career at one-day level and has pushed himself into contention for the Test team.

India A will be spearheaded by in-form batsman VVS Laxman, who has been a run-scoring machine this season in India.

The match also offers Nayam Mongia the opportunity to bring his career full circle after being stood down from the Indian Test team nearly two years ago after his named was linked with the match-fixing scandal.

However, he has been cleared of any wrongdoing and will be watched closely by the Indian selectors.

At 31, Mongia is at least five years older than any other player in the India A side - but nearly all of them have played Tests or one-day internationals.

With the sun going down not long after 6pm in this part of the world, the match will start at 9.30am (3pm AEDT) and finish at 4.30pm (10pm AEDT).

Teams:

Australia: Steve Waugh (captain), Michael Slater, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Jason Gillespie, Damien Fleming, Michael Kasprowicz, Colin Miller.

India A (squad): VVS Laxman (captain), Sadagoppan Ramesh, Shiv Sunder Das, Dinesh Mongia, Hemarg Badani, Mohammad Kaif, Nayan Mongia, Ashish Nehra, Debasis Mohanty, Rahul Sanghvi, Harbhagan Singh, Balaji Rao, Gagan Khoda, Javed Zaman.