Two flawed teams on cricket's biggest stage

Perhaps the biggest date on the Test cricket calendar, this year's Boxing Day match is a meeting between two flawed but fascinating teams. The dimensions of the flaws - Australia's brittle batting, India's slim bowling - create for plenty of intrigue.

Australia enter the match having lost a Test to New Zealand for the first time since 1993, and with the batsmen having been submitted for extra remedial work against the swinging ball. They are bolstered by the return of Shaun Marsh and the inclusion of the solid Ed Cowan, but will have to improve markedly in their resilience as a batting collective. Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey, the two thirty-somethings in the middle order, have the task ahead of them to prove they deserve to keep their spots after recent misadventures with the bat. They will hope for brighter days against India's attack.

Though Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma appear a formidable pace duo on the page, neither is at their peak due to ankle problems. Zaheer's has been recovering after surgery, while Ishant may yet require surgical work once the tour is over. Behind them are the slippery but inexperienced Umesh Yadav and the spin of R Ashwin or Pragyan Ojha, none of whom have played a Test in Australia. Ashwin's accuracy and variations have the chance of posing problems for the hosts, though the drop-in pitch at the MCG is not noted as for extremes of spin or deterioration.

Better known is India's batting, constructed as it is on the pillars of Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sahin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman. The latter trio are on a valedictory trip that is surely their last to this country, Dravid making it memorable already via his insightful Bradman Oration in Canberra. He has been India's most accomplished batsman in 2011, having beaten the naysayers much as Tendulkar did when he emerged from a lean 2005-06. Sehwag's destructive capabilities are self-evident, while Laxman's penchant for Australian bowling is nothing short of legendary. Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli are able lieutenants, through Gambhir is overdue a century.

Opposing them is an Australia bowling ensemble that could be extremely effective, but may also be taken for plenty of runs. James Pattinson's fire and swing have given Michael Clarke the spearhead he needs, while Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus seem to be much improved on the versions of themselves that were milked around the MCG by England in last year's corresponding match. Most curious of all, however, is the matter of Nathan Lyon's fledgling spin. He is talented, and led adeptly by Clarke. But India have destroyed the world's finest slow bowlers as a matter of course, and shall seek to do the same to Lyon to place maximum pressure on a quartet of bowlers lacking the allround element of Shane Watson or Daniel Christian.