New Zealand face india in Do-r-Die match

Bruised and battered in their previous outing, India go into the do-or-die encounter against a gritty New Zealand with concerns about the continuing poor form of their batsmen. Languishing at the bottom of the points table, India will hope that rain does not play spoilsport as Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men need an outright over the Kiwis to progress to Saturday's final against Sri Lanka.

However, Dhoni will be a worried man going into the match, since his famed top-order line-up has struggled throughout the series, the proof of which was the 103-run surrender to Sri Lanka in the last match. Barring Virender Sehwag, all other Indian top-order batsmen have found the going tough on the tricky Rangagiri Dambulla wicket. Sehwag will have to shoulder the responsibility of guiding the Indian innings against the pace-heavy Kiwi attack.

India's main worry, however, will be the form of youngsters who have failed to rise to the occasion in the absence of seniors such as Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir and Harbhajan Singh.

Dinesh Karthik, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have failed miserably in the earlier matches. To add to it, Dhoni himself has very little to show in the tournament.

But Yuvraj Singh's return to runs in the last match might give Dhoni something to cheer about. Yuvraj, who came back to the playing eleven against Sri Lanka in the last match after recovering from dengue, managed the only knock of substance for India with a fighting 38 off 64 balls.

On the bowling front, the Indian attack has done a fine job so far, except for the last match where they had very little to defend. Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar have been impressive in the tournament while their pace colleague Ishant Sharma too is getting back into his groove. Left-arm tweaker Pragyan Ojha also did a decent job with the ball after being handed over the responsibility of spearheading the spin attack in Harbhajan's absence.

New Zealand, on the other hand, will be a confident lot after having mauled India by 200 runs in the tournament opener. Sitting at seven points compared to India's five, the Kiwis too need a victory to qualify for the summit clash. However in the event of the match being washed out due to rain, the Kiwis would automatically make it to the final.

New Zealand's inexperienced batting line-up remains their biggest concern. The relaxed format of the tournament and the unseasonal rain which washed out their match against Sri Lanka means their batsmen have, amazingly, not had a bat in the middle for a dozen days, which the captain Ross Taylor said is "going to give a little more anxiety than the actual game itself."

MS Dhoni's captaincy record of winning every tournament in Sri Lanka is also under threat after India's batting failures in two matches. One heartening factor for Dhoni is the glimpses of form Yuvraj Singh showed during Sunday's humiliating defeat. India have alternated between wins and losses in the previous six matches, a trend which Dhoni will hope extends for one more game.