If the home team can forget the pain of having lost gruesomely to the South Africans at Kolkata and attempt a courageous comeback, the fifth and final day-night ODI here on Monday could be a thrilling contest between the two teams. India are in no mood to let the toss decide the course of the match and let the conditions play any role in their bid to save the series. Given the Kolkata banter and the fact that South Africa now stand on the verge of claiming their first-ever ODI series victory in India, the hosts have decided to set their own battlefield at the Wankhede Stadium. Dravid’s eye caught a ‘‘smattering of grass’’ on the shaven Wankhede wicket and that was all that had been left by the groundsmen after a hard day’s work on Saturday. After the forgettable Kolkata one-dayer, India are feeling at home in Mumbai and they intend to make the best use of the opportunity. In such a scenario, Greg Chappell’s ‘‘strategic’’ solutions to India’s worries will be put through the most important test. Chappell has preferred to do things his way: the captain, team combination, the attack and even the batting line-up, all being in-sync with vision 2007 which he keeps reminding about. Chappell’s basic idea to bring ‘‘flexibility’’ in the Indian line-up was to help the team bounce back, when pushed into a corner. Now with South Africa deriving a psychological edge in Kolkata and the Sourav Ganguly-conundrum urging them to discover cracks in this Indian team, the coach will have to get it right at the Wankhede Stadium. The onus will be on the coach to come up with the best of what he has been able to set in place, in a bid to save the series. At the Wankhede, the wicket, the team, the conditions and crowd, all are in favour of the home team and in their attempt to chalk out a victory, Chappell and Dravid will face the most important test in their stint so far. Never before has dew been a matter of such serious concern while playing in Indian conditions. After the first three games going in favour of the side bowling first, even the Wankhede wicket — in Dravid’s opinion —‘‘would be assessed keeping the dew factor in mind.’’ India’s record at the Wankhede Stadium in the last decade has been dismal. The last ODI victory that India recorded here was in 1996-97 against the same opposition. South Africa, to their dismay, have toured India under Clive Rice, Kepler Wessels and Hansie Cronje in the past but none of these captains have been able to record an ODI series victory here. In some ways, both Rahul Dravid and Graeme Smith agree that conditions played a major role in deciding the outcome of the three one-dayers that have been played in this series. While Hyderabad and Kolkata supported South Africa’s ability to generate pace and bounce, Bangalore gave India the option of carving the much-needed victory on a slow turner. Chappell and Dravid admitted that it was a good opportunity to play against a competent team like South Africa and also hinted on taking a leaf out of their book on how to progress from being an ineffective unit to the second place in the ICC list of ODI rankings. But before they attempt to do that, the Indians will make it a point to remember that South Africa were in a similar position until last year before recording an unbeaten run of 20 ODI matches in 2005.
