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'Spin strategies take centre stage'

Match facts

March 2-6, Hyderabad
Start time 9.30am (0400GMT

Big Picture

The clinical victory in Chennai marked a job well begun by India, but MS Dhoni's side won't be too thrilled yet, having lost the previous series against England despite taking a 1-0 lead. England's fortunes turned with the inclusion of the extra spinner in Monty Panesar for the second Test in Mumbai, and Australia's team management have also been pondering whether to switch to a two-spinner policy, which has historically not worked too well for them in India.

What could prompt Australia to stick to their pace-heavy line-up will be that left-arm spinner Xavier Doherty's Test credentials aren't in the same league as Panesar 's, evidenced by an unflattering first-class average of 44.56.

India Vs Australia Second Test 

India, too, have been wondering about an additional tweaker, though in their case it will expand their spin trio to a quartet. Pragyan Ojha, the left-arm spinner, was perhaps India's best bowler in the series defeat to England but was surprisingly left out in the first Test. India's quicks had little to do in Chennai, and Ojha could take one of their places.

Though Ojha is the latest in a long line of Hyderabad players to have played Tests for India, the city has not been a traditional venue for Test cricket, having only hosted three matches till 2009. Tests returned to Hyderabad in 2010 at the new Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, and the Australia match will be the third in Hyderabad in three years. It is the only Indian stadium to get two Tests this season, benefitting after the Australians complained about the facilities in the original host city, Kanpur. Briefly there were concerns that the match might be moved out of Hyderabad as well, after powerful bomb blasts hit the city just over a week ago. Security has been tightened before the match, with two units of an elite anti-terror squad deployed, and 60 CCTVs being used to monitor the stadium and surroundings.

Form guide

India WDLLW (Last five matches, most recent first)
Australia LWWWL

Watch out for...

In Chennai, James Pattinson once again showed why he's rated so highly by Australia's team management, bowling with ferocious pace to fluster India's batsmen and finishing comfortably the best of the Australia's fast bowlers. Pattinson has a tendency to break down, though, and was used only in two short bursts of three overs each early in the first innings. Can his body handle the intensity of back-to-back Tests?

Pattinson dismissed the opener M Vijay cheaply in both innings. The Chennai Test was Vijay's first chance in more than 18 months, and failure in the second Test could relegate him to the sidelines again. With Gautam Gambhir out of the squad, runs in Hyderabad might open the way to a long run in the side for Vijay. He didn't have the best of Ranji seasons - making only 138 at 17.25 in five matches - but will be hoping to capture the form that brought him centuries in both Irani Cup (a first-class Indian domestic match, which pits the Ranji champions against a Rest of India side) games this season.

Teams news

After the Chennai victory, MS Dhoni had talked about India having found a 'settled' side, indicating that there aren't likely to be too many changes. The only decision the team management will have to make is whether to bring in Ojha, and if so, at whose expense.

India: (probable) 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 M Vijay, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Virat Kohli, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 8 R Ashwin, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 and 11 Bhuvneshwar Kumar/ Ishant Sharma/Pragyan Ojha

Unlike Chennai, where Australia confidently announced their XI well before the match, they have yet to name their team for Hyderabad. The batting is unlikely to change, unless David Warner fails to recover from his bout of gastro. Though their coach Mickey Arthur suggested that, in hindsight, Australia should have played two spinners in Chennai, it is expected that they will play only Lyon as the specialist slow bowler.

India Vs Australia Second Test Sachin Tendulkar

Australia: 1 David Warner, 2 Ed Cowan, 3 Phillip Hughes, 4 Shane Watson, 5 Michael Clarke (capt), 6 Matthew Wade (wk), 7 Moises Henriques, 8 Peter Siddle, 9 Mitchell Starc/Mitchell Johnson/Xavier Doherty, 10 James Pattinson, 11 Nathan Lyon

Pitch and conditions

It will be hotter in Hyderabad than in Chennai, with the temperature predicted to be around 35C in the afternoons. There is no rain forecast over the next week. The pitch is expected to provide help for the spinners, though it should have more in it for the quick bowlers than the turner in Chennai as it is a harder surface.

Stats and trivia

In his previous innings, Dhoni moved into the top 10 among six-hitters in Test cricket, going past Kevin Pietersen. He has cleared the ropes 75 times in Tests, and needs 26 more to break the all-time record held by Adam Gilchrist

Peter Siddle's bowling strike-rate of 41.6 is the best by an Australian against India

Quotes

"When you go onto a ground, you have a good feeling if you have done well before over there … [you have] a good positive mindset."
R Ashwin took 12 wickets in his previous Test in Hyderabad 

"Spin formula India's best bet''

An American football coach once had the basic principle of sports writing explained to him by a reporter: "When you lose, we make fun of you. When you win, we make fun of the other guy."

Much fun, therefore, is being made of Australia's bloopers in the Chennai Test and India are spared the pincushion treatment for now. They would hope the respite lasts for another few months at least.

Victory in the Chennai Test has brought relief rather than fist-pumping 'payback' celebration. Three Tests and three months of introspection lay between India's last Test victory in Ahmedabad against England and the Chennai Test. This was a victory they needed as much as they wanted. It was eked out through a fairly simple formula, one that India hopes will keep working through the rest of the series.

India Vs Australia Second Test Photos 

Chennai was dusted and done, in that order, 90 minutes into day five. After MS Dhoni's brutal double-century on Sunday, the Indian spinners brought their brand of business into play on day four. R Ashwin, Harbhajan Singh and Ravinder Jadeja ran through the Australian batting on a track that spat, bit and either leapt with venom or sizzled with zip.

This is the way this series is going to go, in all likelihood. The focus is on pitches that will allow India to successfully play three spinners, including Jadeja. As long as their batsmen can hold out (Dhoni did far more than hold out in Chennai, he led a surge) and the inexperienced Australians keep sweating, India will control the series.

It is, it appears, India's best chance of securing a result that stays true to script and overturns their own overturning by England.

Before Chennai, India's last Test victory had come on a sluggish surface and led to complaints about the man-hours and sweat-buckets required by India's spinners to get 20 wickets. The turner that was demanded, rather openly, backfired on them in Mumbai after England re-grouped, played Monty Panesar ahead of Tim Bresnan and roared back.

The only similarity between Panesar and Australia's Xavier Doherty is that they are quickish left-arm spinners. Doherty is more of a limited-overs specialist and, not surprisingly, Panesar has played over 100 first-class matches more than him. India will be on the lookout for any copycat approaches from Australia which, if unsuccessful, will no doubt be mocked too.

So far so good. Chennai was originally the venue of the fourth and final Test of the series. The venues were switched around to open the series in the south when it was decided that Hyderabad would host the second Test instead of Kanpur (Cricket Australia had expressed dissatisfaction over the facilities in Kanpur). The ideal script for India would be Australia heading into a north Indian spring, in Mohali and Delhi, 0-2 down.

 VVS Laxman's succinct description on television of what the pitch in his home town for the second Test would be was "hard, firm and crumbling". In the previous Test played in Hyderabad, New Zealand were beaten soon after tea on the fourth day, with Ashwin and Ojha taking 18 of the 20 wickets.

Word from the Indian camp is that injury to one quick bowler after another meant that spin became the only 20-wicket option available to the hosts for this series. One tally even has the number of injured at ten but in real terms the list includes Zaheer Khan, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Vinay Kumar, Irfan Pathan and a fittish RP Singh (who comes with wishful longing for a 2007 version).

The Chepauk track was called 'decent' by Dhoni and 'typically Indian' by Jadeja, while Clarke said it "looked a lot worse than it played". There were 1243 runs and 32 wickets over four-and-a-bit days, evidence, it was said, of its perfectly respectable nature. What cannot be denied though is that - barring Pattinson's manful effort in the first innings - the pitch largely favoured a type of bowler, rather than give both quicks and slow men their moments over five days.

Ironically, the species of bowler Chennai favoured is the kind that is sadly going out of vogue in India to the point that the national selectors couldn't find a surprise newcomer to throw into the mix. Laxman's estimate of the number of quality spinners - and he knew how to play them - in the country numbered at "seven or eight", rather than the "two or three per domestic team" that he remembered running into in the 1990s.

To say that a dry, slow, crumbling, unpredictable pitch equates to what other sides do - play to the home team's 'strength' - is somewhat misleading. If India had more confidence in the spinners they consider their 'strength', the surfaces would not require, as the Chennai curator delightfully explained in the Indian Express on Wednesday morning, "selective watering". This is more a reflection of India's limited options and the weakness of a new, raw generation of Australian batsmen. And not wanting to be made fun of.

'I missed bowling in Chennai' – Watson

If Shane Watson's commitment to playing as a batsman only on this tour was ever going to be tested, standing in the field for 154.3 overs during India's the first innings in Chennai was the time. As the runs piled up for India and Australia's attack struggled for impact they missed Watson's bowling, and Watson missed being part of it. But he said while the possibility of bowling later on the tour had crossed his mind, he knew that for the sake of his fitness and form, he had to stick to his plan.

Over the past few years in Test cricket, Watson has had a happy knack of breaking partnerships and an unhappy habit of breaking down. His most recent injury, the problem with his left calf that ruled him out of the third Test against Sri Lanka in January and the one-day series that followed, prompted him to declare that he would give up bowling for the Test tour of India to concentrate on his batting, and on stringing together as much cricket as he could.

India Vs Australia Second Test Hyderabad 

Having missed the whole of the previous Australian Test summer due to calf and hamstring injuries, and then the Brisbane and Adelaide Tests against South Africa, Watson decided his best option was to temporarily give up bowling. As India's batsmen put on a series of frustrating partnerships in Chennai, Watson was itching to take the ball and he said the experience had confirmed in his mind that giving up bowling would not be a permanent move.

"That was a time that reaffirmed to me that I do want to bowl," Watson said. "That was a time where if I hadn't have made the decision not to bowl for this tour that I could have had some input on the game at a crucial time in the match. That to me was the first time over the last month since I came back that I missed bowling.

"The decision I made is more a longer-term decision to get some running and conditioning into my legs, so when I start bowling again, my body has more chance of handling it. I do appreciate the decision but it certainly reaffirmed to me that I'm never going to give up bowling. It excites me having some input on the game, especially when what I do could have an influence on a certain part of the game."

For the time being, Watson's plan is to resume bowling during the second half of the IPL with the ultimate goal of being able to contribute with the ball during Australia's Ashes tour of England in July and August. He said while the thought of bowling at some point on the Indian tour was tempting - he has taken 12 wickets at 33.41 in his past six Tests in the country - he was resigned to the fact that his existing plan was a better long-term idea.

"That thought has gone through my mind a few times but I suppose we do have to stay on course," Watson said. "There were reasons why I made that decision - to try and get my body conditioned enough to get back into my bowling.

"I know I've needed two or three months just to be able to get some conditioning into my body, to then hopefully hold together for the next period of time once I get back bowling again. There is a big reason why I'm not bowling at the moment - in between the Test matches to get some running into my legs to continue to build that resilience, so I can hopefully just stay together."

In committing to his long-term plan to stay on the field, Watson took advice from Cricket Australia's medical staff as well as his personal physio, Viktor Popov, and it was made after discussing the idea with the captain Michael Clarke. The bowling issue came to a head after the Hobart Test against Sri Lanka, when Watson bowled 47.4 overs, easily the most he had ever sent down in a game, and he struggled with his calf in the next Test.

"I took a lot of information in at the time, especially through the summer having the same calf injury again and also the amount I bowled in Hobart, that was the most I've ever bowled in my career in four or five-day cricket," Watson said. "I knew my body could handle it, it was more so backing up to handle it again. I had to get the right conditioning in my legs, things like running technique, doing all those things to give myself a better chance to hold together my body when I'm bowling.

"But I also need to be more careful in the future about the overs I do bowl. One, I have the chance to do it more consistently and have less chance of injury but also there were times when it affected my batting, more so in Test cricket over the last 12 to 18 months, especially when I was opening. There were a number of reasons why I made that decision, most importantly is trying to score some runs in Test cricket as well."

To that end, Watson has been working in the nets on his footwork, with the intention of being able to come down the pitch to India's spinners rather than simply playing back as he has on previous tours of India. He made 84 and 60 during the warm-up match against India A and showed encouraging glimpses in the first Test but was unable to build a big score, falling for 28 in the first innings and 17 in the second.

Chennai knock Dhoni's best – Chappell

Former Australia captain Greg Chappell has rated MS Dhoni's double-century in Chennai as his best in Tests. Dhoni's knock of 224 tilted the scales in India's favour, according to Chappell, and helped them to a 1-0 lead in the four-match series against Australia.

"He has played several memorable knocks in one-day cricket, but this was the best I have seen him play in Test matches," Chappell told The Times of India.

"I have seen him smack a yorker-length delivery from James Anderson for a six. It requires special talent. His success on a crumbling Chennai track stems from his ability to strike the ball hard on pitches where the ball tends to keep low. Had he scored just 124, the match would still have been in the balance. The manner in which he attacked a tiring Australian attack, shielding the tailenders, truly makes him a match-winner."

This was India's seventh win in the last 21 Tests, five of which have come against West Indies and New Zealand. India lost eight consecutive overseas Tests, and conceded a series at home to England for the first time in 28 years. Chappell accepted that the Indian team looked average on their tour of Australia last summer but maintained that Dhoni's captaincy shouldn't be under doubt.

"It is true that the Indian team under Dhoni looked below par during their tour Down Under, but he has answered his critics in the best possible way. In my book he remains the best man to lead India in all forms of the game.

India Vs Australia Second Test Livestreaming in Hyderabad 

"At a time when players all over the world are struggling to cope with their workload, it is amazing how Dhoni manages to play every game with the same intensity. That he has done it successfully now for five years speaks volumes about Dhoni's fitness, mental strength as well as his commitment. India are lucky to have him."

Although Australia crumbled under Dhoni's onslaught to eventually lose by eight wickets, a few of their players had impressed. One of them was the debutant Moises Henriques, who scored half-centuries in both innings, finishing with an unbeaten 81 in the second dig to help prevent an innings defeat. In Henriques, Chappell saw the makings of a long-term allrounder.

"It was good to see Henriques coming good at last. He has been on the fringe for a while. I hope he can be the allrounder that Australia have been looking for, particularly after a question mark over Shane Watson's ability to contribute with the ball."

Regardless of the result of the first Test, Chappell felt the series wouldn't be one-sided.

"It will be a close series, but thanks to Dhoni, India do have a significant advantage."

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