India will play the crucial last league match against the West Indies without master blaster Sachin Tendulkar.

Dinesh Karthik will replace Tendulkar in the playing eleven.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni had earlier said he would name his squad for the match against West Indies depending on how the Pak-Aus match progresses.

If Pakistan beat Australia at Centurion by a big margin, India will need to defeat West Indies by a huge margin to make it to the semifinals in their last Group B match which will start five hours later.

Dhoni said he would keenly follow the Pakistan-Australia game and would decide on his playing eleven only after he has seen how the day's game is heading.

"We would delay our team selection. It depends on how the match is progressing. If we need to strengthen our batting we would do so. If we need the bowling to get stronger, we would do that," Dhoni said at a press conference.

A lot of calculation would be on tomorrow and Dhoni expected not only his support staff, but even seniors and others to chip in with their suggestions.

"Not only the coach and the support staff, even the seniors would be needed to chip in with their advice.

"Unfortunately, not everything is in your hand. Lot of things need to happen: Pakistan to win, we to beat West Indies and net run-rate," he said.

Dhoni is hoping that the Indian fans would be cheering for Pakistan to win against Australia.

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"All of India wants its team to do well. Knowing that Pakistan's win (against Australia) earlier in the day is so important, they all would be cheering for Pakistan," he said.

It didn't concern Dhoni that Pakistan, the arch-rivals, could actually be attempting to lose by giving a few of their star players a rest against Australia.

"Now that they have qualified, they could be looking to experiment with their bench strength. It depends on what they want to get out of tomorrow's game."

Looking at how the tournament has gone by for India, Dhoni squarely blamed his bowlers for the side's ills.

"We batted in only one game so you can't say the batting has let us down. But we have bowled twice and we are not bowling that well. Yesterday (against Australia), the bowlers were much better, they were neither too short nor too full.

But we have to admit we didn't bowl that well," he said.

Personally though, Dhoni was prepared to look his team's performance in Champions Trophy philosophically.

"Losing and winning is part and parcel of any sport. It's enough for me that I am playing for my country and am leading the side which not everybody gets a chance to do. That's enough for me.

"We have done very well in the last 18-20 months. We have done well all over the world. We have the potential to do well. The boys can bounce back and on their day can give any side tough fight."

Strike form

On Ishant Sharma's poor show so far, Dhoni had words of encouragement and said the young fast bowler would strike form soon.

"It's not about the drop in pace. It's about the line and length you bowl. I thought Ishant, in his second spell yesterday, was the old Ishant we know. Keeping it on the off-stump and bringing the ball in and not giving too much width to the batsmen.

"It happens all the time in cricket. A few good shots and a batsman is back in form. A few good balls and a bowler regains his confidence."

Dhoni also responded with interest to his Australian counterpart Ricky Ponting's suggestion that the workload of cricketers, particularly fast bowlers, needs to be managed well.

"It's a tough thing to say. You rotate a few players and lose a game and it becomes a big issue in India. One thing which whole of India needs all the time is win. You have to admit with so many games being played, you can't win all the games.

"This is something which everyone has to understand. You need bench strength but you don't want to miss big players in big tournaments. The second line must be readied though. You need to groom them. They ought to have played 20-30 games so when a senior misses out, a young player is ready to step in.

India-West Indies ODIs - Head to Head
 
        Played  Won by Won by NR Tied Winning %  Winning %
                India   WI            India       WI
 
Overall   94     37     54    2   1   40.76       59.23
 
Last 10   10      6      3    1   -   60.00       40.00
Last  5    5      3      1    1   -   75.00       25.00
 
ICC Ch.    2      -      2    -   -    0.00      100.00
 
Brief Results - ICC Champions Trophy
 
Date      Venue  Toss    Result
 
31.10.98  Dhaka  India   West Indies won by 6 wickets
26.10.06  Ahmed. W.I.    West Indies won by 3 wickets
 
Approaching milestone:
 
- Harbhajan Singh (957 runs + 217 wickets) requires 43 runs to become only the third Indian all-rounder after Kapil Dev and Ajit Agarkar to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 200 wickets in ODIs.
 

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