Melbourne: Teams foresee friendly pitch

Melbourne:

Merv Hughes' handlebar moustache makes his an easily recognizable figure.

He's now an Australian selector who has to decide on whether Australia should play an all pace attack for the first time since 1992 or to bring in Brad Hogg as the lone spinner.

Hogg's troublesome wrong one and his 8 wickets at Melbourne in a domestic game earlier this season makes him a favourite, which means that one of the pacers will miss out.

The big debate for the Australians going into the first Test is whether to drop Mitchell Johnson or Shaun Tait with the pitch expected to favour spin on days four and five of the Test, this could just be the advantage the Indians are looking for in what is undoubtedly going to be a very hard fought series.

The curator at the MCG, Tony Ware tends to think that the conditions at Melbourne will suit India with days 4 and 5 being great for the spinners, which means India will also have to decide on whether to play 2 spinners or not though Anil Kumble had said earlier that the chances of Harbhajan playing look slim.

Clarke is said to be a captain in the making and he certainly seems to have the typical Aussie captaincy trait that of warning his opponents over the aggression issue.

India can think about the aggression later but right now they are more worried about the lack of match practice, given that the tour game only allowed for 48 overs over 3 days.

"We don't want to make up excuses, you know that we have not had enough practice. The guys have been working very hard. As a unit we have been working hard not only on batting and bowling but also on our fitness.

"Mentally we are prepared and we don't want to find excuses. As far as I am concerned we are ready and we would like to go out there and put on a good show," said Sachin Tendulkar.

Hopefully the weather will allow both teams to put on a big show.