India aim to avoid a whitewash, while Australia target a 5-0 victory as the 5th ODI comes rolling along on Saturday at the SCG in Sydney.
The 4th ODI on Wednesday was the best match in this one-day international series so far, with Australia putting on a massive total of 348. An India win looked inevitable with Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli tonking the Australia bowling for fun, but, somehow, the visitors managed to throw away the advantage, gifting the home side a victory.
That defeat, more than any of the previous three, would have been the most difficult to take, because there is no way India should have been on the losing side, not after Dhawan and Kohli struck such magnificent centuries. Get over the disappointment they must, though, as the final match of the ODI series comes calling at one of Australia's most famous grounds.
"We batted really well [in the fourth match]," India skipper MS Dhoni told reporters. "It also gave a glimpse of what you may see in the T20Is, a lot of flamboyant cricket.
"At the same time you may say, yes we lost, are we disappointed? We are definitely disappointed, but still, you want to take the positives. And the positive is that if we could have batted better than we did after I lost my wicket, this game could have gotten over in 46th or 47th over.
"You look at it that way. You don't want to sink into something negative. You always want to get a lot of positives. And I feel there were lot of positives in the game, especially in the batting department."
The batting will need to be at their best if India are to salvage at least one win from this series, because the bowling continues to look pretty dreary. Flat pitch or not, the bowlers just haven't been able to find any kind of consistency as a unit, and that will be a cause for worry for Dhoni going into the T20s and the World T20 that will follow soon.
Australia will know the satisfaction that come with a whitewash victory, and knowing the team in yellow, there will be absolutely no letup come Saturday.
"We desperately want to win 5-0," Australia fast bowler John Hastings told Cricket Australia's official website. "If you can get a little advantage over your opposition at home -- there have been times when we've gone over to India and they've had the wood on us over there [in India].
"So we're definitely looking to go 5-0, that's a massive priority for us."
5th ODI schedule: India vs Australia.
Date: Saturday, 23 January.
Time: 8.50 am IST (2.20 pm local time, 3.20 am GMT, 10.20 pm ET).
Venue: Sydney Cricket Ground.
TV listings: India: Star Sports HD1, Star Sports HD3, Star Sports 1 and Star Sports 3. Australia: Channel 9. UK: Sky Sports 2. USA: Willow TV. Middle East and North Africa: OSN Cricket. South Africa and Sub Saharan Africa: SuperSport.
