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This is for the first time since 2004 India will play without both of their two key players Yuvraj Singh and M.S.Dhoni. It will give an opportunity to test youngsters ahead of the 2010 World Cup as stated by the captain Virendra Sehwag. But Virendra Sehwag would love to take the unassailable 3-1 lead at Eden Garden, Kolkata.

Indian team were already missing M.S.Dhoni due to ban imposed on him for two one day internationals and were dealt a blow when the dangerous Yuvraj Singh was ruled out of the rest of the series against Sri Lanka.

In the absence of Yuvraj and Dhoni, the batting will heavily rely on Sachin Tendulkar and Virendra Sehwag and any one of them needs to bat out the inning if India would like to win the series here at Eden Garden, Kolkata.

Both teams will once again heavily rely on their opening pair to give a perfect launching pad for the batsman to follow. Indians have plenty of thinking to do specially in the bowling department. Their pace bowlers given away too many runs at start in the last three one day internationals but the good thing is their spinners Ravinder Jadeja and Harbhajan Singh looks good at Cuttack.

India main threat would be Sri Lankan make shift opener T.Dilshan and skipper Kumar Sangakara, India will have to dismiss both early to stay in the match.

Sri Lanka on the other hand love to level the series here and will travel to New Delhi for the final clash but this to happen they need to improve in certain areas like batting in middle overs of the inning. At Cuttack, Sri Lanka were well placed at 165/1 in 22 overs but at the end whole team was bundled out for 239 in the 44^th over. This is the area where they need to tighten the grip.

Watch out for

Virendra Sehwag: A man who is capable of turning the game with the bat in no time will be watched by millions in hope that he will play an inning like Rajkot to help India to wrap up the five match series at historic Eden Garden, Kolkata.

T.Dilshan & Kumar Sangakara: Both batsman’s are in superb form and Sri Lankan batting so far in the series relied on these two. Sri Lankan success or failure in the fourth ODI will depend on how these two players play in the fourth ODI at Kolkata.

Pitch & Condition

The pitch at Eden Garden, Kolkata will be not like the one which we have seen in the last three one day matches however scores in excess of 250 is expected at this pitch. With day/night games, dew factor is expected to play a large role. Team winning the toss will prefer to have a bowl in the dryer condition in the afternoon.

Teams

India may have lost their batting power house Yuvraj Singh and M.S.Dhoni but they have the bench strength with the players like Dinesh Karthik and Virat Kohli to step in place of these two.

Sri Lanka on the other hand will think twice before leaving Sanath Jayasurya out of the XI since the performance of C.Kapugedara is not much impressive. This is the only changes which is likely to take place in the final Sri Lankan’s XI.

Likely Playing XI for both Teams (Match is Schedule to begin at 14:30 PM India Time)

India Squad: V.Sehwag (Captain), S.Tendulkar, G.Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, D.Karthik (WK), Ravinder Jadeja, H.Singh, Z.khan, A.Nehra, Ishant Sharma.

Sri Lanka Squad: Upul Tharanga, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara (Captain/WK), Mahela Jayawardene, Sanath Jayasuriya, Thilina Kandamby, Nuwan Kulasekara, Suraj Randiv, Lasith Malinga, Ajantha Mendis, Chanaka Welegedara.

Stats & Trivia

Both teams have played twice at this venue, on one occasion India merge as winner while Sri Lanka came out victorious on other occasion.

The largest margin of victory in an ODI at this venue is India's 102-run win over West Indies.