Chance for Test Bench Strength

Bulawayo: Having already clinched the series with an unassailable 3-0 lead, a dominant India may look to test their bench strength when they take on minnows Zimbabwe in the fourth cricket one-dayer on Thursday.

The convincing seven-wicket win in the third ODI gave India the series title, reducing the remaining two ODIs to academic interest and that could prompt the team management to experiment with the combination.

The Indians may look to rest some of the key players and give an opportunity to Cheteshwar Pujara, Parveez Rasool, Mohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane as they have not played a single match in the series.

India might look to bring Rahane as one of the openers and give Pujara a chance to lend support to the middle order, while Jammu and Kashmir all-rounder Rasool may get a look-in in place of all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja or Amit Mishra.

However, it will be difficult for pacer Mohit to make his way to a team which already has youngsters Jaydev Unadkat, Mohammed Shami doing reasonably well. Whether skipper Virat Kohli hands Mohit his ODI debut by resting R Vinay Kumar, who has been a trifle disappointing, remains to be seen.

For Zimbabwe, the three loses in as many matches at home will be difficult to stomach but skipper Brendan Taylor has to motivate his boys to play out of their skin and restore some pride in the remaining matches.

Batting has been the problem for the hosts in all the three games so far as their batters sometimes faltered in the middle of the innings, while they let go a good start while chasing in another match.

The odds were always against Zimbabwe as they were taking on the world champions and Taylor felt it was the "mental toughness" which made all the difference in the end.

The conditions at Queens Sports Club will be similar to Harare and is expected to be more batsmen friendly.

Teams from:

Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe: Brendan Taylor (Capt. & wk), Sikandar Raza, Tendai Chatara, Michael Chinouya, Elton Chigumbura, Graeme Cremer, Kyle Jarvis, Timycen Maruma, Hamilton Masakadza, Natsai M'shangwe, Tinotenda Mutombodzi, Vusimuzi Sibanda, Prosper Utseya, Brian Vitori, Malcolm Waller, Sean Williams.

India: Virat Kohli (Capt.), Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Parvez Rasool, Vinay Kumar, Shami Ahmed, Jaydev Unadkat, Amit Mishra.

Match facts
Thursday August 1, 2013
Start time 0900 local (0700 GMT, 1230 IST)