Australia rely on pace

In the absence of quality spin option, the Australian selectors have chosen a five-man pace battery, two of them raw hands, for the all-important tour of India.
The attack boasts of the world's top speed merchant Brett Lee, the accurate Stuart Clark, emerging left-armer Mitchell Johnson and the wet-behind-the-ears duo of Doug Bollinger and Peter Siddle.
This quintet may not give the struggling Indian middle order sleepless nights, especially in their own backyard of slow-paced pitches offering low bounce, but it will be foolish and churlish to dismiss it, especially in the light of past experience.
There's no Glenn McGrath to tie up the top-order in knots with his relentless off stump attack and ability to extract disconcerting bounce, but in Clark the team has the right man to play the ideal foil to the searing pace of Lee.
With Johnson expected to be the third pacer in the playing eleven and all rounder Shane Watson filling in the shoes of the absent Andrew Symonds, the pace attack sports a healthy look.
Australia's chief selector Andrew Hilditch has said that though he expects the wickets to help spin bowlers the accent was on pace because the Aussies broke a thirty-year Test series victory drought on Indian soil through fast bowling on their last visit in 2004-05.
"We think it will be the same this time," he said after the squad for India was chosen.