'Sloppy' Australia seek turnaround

February 19, Brisbane
Start time 1320 (0320 GMT) 

 This tri-series has suddenly become interesting. Sri Lanka's bonus-point win over Australia in Sydney on Friday means that at the halfway stage of the tournament, only three points separate the three teams. Australia now find themselves without their regular captain and needing a victory to regain the top spot on the Commonwealth Bank Series table. Their loss to Sri Lanka was comprehensive, and the batsmen need to lift after they slipped to 8 for 104 on Friday. David Warner is yet to fire in this series and a big innings from him would be a major boost for the team, while Ricky Ponting has also been disappointing, and too much has been asked of David Hussey in the lower middle order. In the field they have been sloppy, in Ponting's own words, and they need to sharpen up in the second half of the series.

India have started to find their groove in the shorter format after a miserable Test tour. Their last match was a tie with Sri Lanka but that followed two victories and notably, the senior top-order batsmen Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag are yet to impose themselves on the series. That means there is plenty of room for India to improve further. And they can take encouragement from the venue: they have won their past two one-day internationals against Australia at the Gabba. However, Australia haven't been beaten in Brisbane since that last loss to India, in March 2008.