Indians have to play for pride

After loosing the series to world champions Australia by 4-1 in Nagpur, India will only have pride and some statistics to play for in the seventh One Day International (ODI) in Mumbai on Wednesday.

It was billed as a battle between the champions - Australia are the ODI World Cup winners and India the Twenty20 kings - but the seven-match series turned out to be thoroughly one-sided with Ricky Ponting’s team emerging head and shoulders above the hosts.

If the first match had not been abandoned due to rain in Bangalore, the scoreline could have looked more embarrassing for Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s side.

Now, the players will try to salvage some lost pride and add a few runs and wickets to their personal accounts in the day-night encounter - the last match at the stadium in its present form. The structure will soon be demolished and a new, modern stadium will be built in its place.

The gap between the two teams can be shown statistically. Consider this: the Australians have scored two centuries and 11 half-centuries while the Indians have managed just one century and five half-tons, the top Australian run accumulator Andrew Symonds has aggregated 365 while his counterpart Sachin Tendulkar has managed 257, the top Australian wicket takers Brad Hogg and Mitchell Johnson have dismissed 11 batsmen while Sreesanth has taken nine.

Agency