India eye improved bowling effort to level ODI series

BRISBANE: Stung by the defeat in the series opener despite putting up a big score, India will have to plug their bowling loopholes when they take on Australia in the second cricket one-dayer here tomorrow, fully aware that any slip-up will make their task of bouncing back difficult.

Chasing an imposing 310, Australia romped home with ease by registering a comfotable five-wicket win to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series at Perth on Tuesday.

And at the Gabba tomorrow, the visitors would be hoping to make life difficult for Australia but for that to happen Mahendra Singh Dhoni would be expectiing a much-improved show from his bowlers.

The five bowlers India played proved to be inadequately short at the WACA, particularly the spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who had a bad day in office.

For India, there is defintely scope for permutations and combinations among the old names.

Lanky pacer Ishant Sharma is fit and available for selection. If Dhoni decides to go in with the same combination which he fielded in Perth, Ishant could come in for Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

The WACA wicket was slower than expected, but the Gabba pitch is not expected to be similar which provides Dhoni enough reasons to contemplate going in with four pacers.

But the performance of his spin duo would be a concern for Dhoni going into tomorrow's match.

Both Ashwin and Jadeja were off-colour in the series opener. While the former gave away 68 runs for two wickets from his nine overs, the latter too was expensive costing 61 runs from as many overs without any success.

And come tomorrow it will be interesting to see what kind of impact either Ashwin or Jadeja can make as they will look to shrug off the poor show in the previous game.

But consistency is something which Dhoni would look for from bowling attack.

To add to it, Dhoni also does not have definitive part-time options to fall back upon.

Young left-arm pacer Barinder Sran, who made his debut in the last match, was the eye-catcher for India in the losing cause in Perth.

He picked up three wickets giving away 56 runs and the tall Punjab pacer would be hoping for a repeat performance tomorrow.