RAWALPINDI,
April 13 - India captain Saurav Ganguly won the toss and put Pakistan
in to bat on a green top wicket in the deciding third and final
test on Tuesday. There is plenty of grass on the wicket that is
expected to help seamers early on.
Ganguly returned
to the Indian team after missing the first two tests due to a back
injury sustained in last month's fifth one-day international. It
is still unclear who would open the Indian innings, with Ganguly
hinting he may do the job "for this one time". India have
made two changes from the side that lost the last test, dropping
opener Aakash Chopra to accommodate Ganguly and bringing in left-arm
paceman Ashish Nehra for medium-pacer Ajit Agarkar.
Pakistan replaced
injured seamer Umar Gul, man-of-the-match in their nine-wicket win
at Lahore last week, with medium-pacer Fazl-e-Akbar. Paceman Mohammad
Sami, who was struggling with back pain, was declared fit for the
match. Pakistan's young top order comprising of Taufeeq Umer, Imran
Farhat and Yasir Hameed will be looking to make their mark in seamer
friendly conditions.
India won the
first test in Multan by an innings and 52 runs before Pakistan hit
back to level the series.
Teams:
India: Saurav
Ganguly (captain), Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar,
Vangipurappu Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Parthiv Patel, Irfan Pathan,
Lakshmipathy Balaji, Anil Kumble, Ashish Nehra.
Pakistan: Inzamam-ul-Haq
(captain), Imran Farhat, Taufeeq Umar, Yasir Hameed, Yousuf Youhana,
Asim Kamal, Kamran Akmal, Mohammad Sami, Shoaib Akhtar, Danish Kaneria,
Fazl-e-Akbar.
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