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Match of many things

Fourth and final Test from today

AFP, Nagpur
New captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Wednesday promised India would cope with the "crucial" loss of banned top batsman Gautam Gambhir as they chase a Test series win against Australia from Thursday.
India will hand Murali Vijay his Test debut in the absence of opener Gambhir, who has top-scored with 463 runs to help his team to a 1-0 series lead but lost his appeal against a one-match ban for elbowing Shane Watson.
Gambhlr's loss is one of a number of distractions for Dhoni, who is playing his first match as full time captain after Anil Kumble's
retirement. The match will be exskipper Sourav Ganguly's last before retiring and Venkatsai Laxman's 100th.
"Gambhir's absence will be crucial because he was the man in form and scored a lot of runs. A good start is what really matters and then you can capitalise on it to put a big score on the board," said Dhoni.
"Right now we are planning to go with newcomer Murali Vijay as he has been doing very well in domestic cricket. We have confidence in him and hopefully we get the start we need," he added.
"We don't want to put pressure on him and warn him to play his norma) game. We know the opposition always tries to put pressure on a debutant."
Dhoni pledged not to be sidetracked by the celebrations involv-
ing Laxman and Ganguly and said he would not feel extra pressure in his debut as full-time skipper. The wicketkeeper has deputised as captain in two previous Tests.
"I don't think these are distractions. It makes no difference whether I am a stand-in or regular captain," Dhoni said.
"We are focused on the tilings we need to do here. We have prepared well and executed our plans well in this scries and that’s the most important thing," he said.
"It's a big match but we don't want to put pressure on ourselves. We just need to stick to the basics. Whatever we have being doing till now we need to do the same here. We have to go out and play up to our potential."
Australia skipper Ricky Ponting
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said his team needed to be at their best in a match they must win to retain the Border-GavaskarTYophy.
"Being 1 -0 down in a series with one match to play is a position a lot of us have not been before. This is probably the biggest test for all of us," said Ponting.
"We pride ourselves in playing well in big games and this is certainly a big game. This is a great opportunity for all of us to stand up and play better cricket than we played in the first three Tests.
"It’s the one that we obviously have to win and I think looking back at last week (third Test), we all are pretty happy at the way we competed. The last three-and-a-half days we played very good Test match cricket."
Australia put in an impressive batting performance under pressure in the previous match, scoring 577 in reply to India's mammoth first-innings total of613-7 declared.
"We know we have to play better cricket than we played in the first three Tests if we have to level the scries, but there are plenty of positives to take from the Delhi Test," he said.
Ponting said Gambhir's absence could affect India's chances of making a solid start.
"Gambhir and Virender Sehwag have been responsible for getting India off to a good start. Without him (Gambhir) it gives us an opportunity to put pressure on their middle order," he said.
On their last tour in 2004, Australia won their first Test scries in India since 1969. They retained the Border-Gavaskar Ttophy in an ill-tempered scries on home ground earlier this year.
TEAMS
INDIA: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain). Murali Vijay, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan. Amit Mishra. Ishant Sharma. AUSTRALIA (from): Ricky Ponting (captain), Matthew Hayden, Simon Katich, Michael Hussey. Michael Clarke, Shane Watson. Brad Haddin, Cameron White, Jason Krcjza, Stuart Clark, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson.