Cold India, hot Pakistan, chilly Delhi
Team news
India will be under pressure to give Ajinkya Rahane a game. Or they might want to give the misfiring openers one final chance before they drop - as is widely being anticipated - at least one of them in the selection meeting that will happen on the same day. In the bowling department, India are not exactly brimming with options.
The Dhoni decision will be made on the morning of the match.
India (possible): 1 & 2 Two out Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag and Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Suresh Raina, 6 MS Dhoni (capt. & wk)/ Dinesh Karthik, 7 R Ashwin, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Ashok Dinda.
Pakistan didn't make any changes to the combination when the series was alive, but their chairman of selectors, Iqbal Qasim, has hinted at a few experiments now that the series is won.
Pakistan (possible): 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Nasir Jamshed, 3 Azhar Ali, 4 Younis Khan, 5 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt.), 6 Shoaib Malik, 7 Kamran Akmal (wk), 8 Junaid Khan, 9 Umar Gul, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Mohammad Irfan.
Pitch and conditions
Staging cricket in north India is a challenge in winter. Ranji matches have all been hit by fog and bad light. The groundsman, Venkat Sundaram, has been quoted in DNA saying he has always asked the BCCI to not stage matches in Delhi at this time of the year. In fact, Feroz Shah Kotla has hosted only three international matches in January.
However, Sundaram says the pitch is ready. The match strip produced a result in three days and a bit in the first-class match between Delhi and Odisha in November, but don't expect such help for seamers in the ODI.
The temperature is likely to swing between 4C and 15C. Fog and dew will be factors too, which is why we have the game starting at noon.
Stats and Trivia
India have been whitewashed at home only once, by West Indies, who were intent on payback after the World Cup-final loss, in 1983-84.
Pakistan and Australia are the only teams to have beaten India in a home ODI series in the last 10 years.
Younis Khan needs 108 runs to become the seventh Pakistan player to reach 7000 ODI runs
This series is shaping up to be the first in India since early 2007 with not a single score of 300
D
