Australia XI v Indian Board President XI - Warm-up Match

Hyderabad: Australia get down to business with their tour opener against a India Board President's XI beginning here on Thursday. Whether the bunch of India hopefuls and discards that makeup the BP XI team can test Ricky Pointing and Co will be seen over the next four days. How well the Yuvraj Singh led team does will set the tone for the four match Test series beginning in Bangalore on October 9.

They don't need to look beyond the Mumbai team and the treatment they mated out to Mark Taylor's Australian team in 1998. "It's going to be a big series. An India-Australia series is highly competitive. The Boys playing the game here tomorrow will obviously stand a chance at some stage in this series, "said skipper Yuvraj Singh on Wednesday evening.

McGain ruled out: The visiting side suffered a setback with leg-spinner Bryce McGain ruled out of the match as he is yet to recover from his shoulder strain and ruled out first Test as well. That makes office Jason Kreja the sole contender for the spinner's role and more pressure on pacers Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark.

Australia Squad: Ricky Ponting (C), Brad Haddin (WK), Brett Lee, Bryce McGain, Doug Bollinger, Jason Krejza, Matthew Hayden, Michael Clarke (VC), Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle, Phil Jaques, Shane Watson, Simon Katich, Stuart Clark.

Board President's XI Squad: Yuvraj Singh (capt), Aakash Chopra, S Badrinath, Wasim Jaffer, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Parthiv Patel (wk), Irfan Pathan, S Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ojha, Pankaj Singh, Manpreet Gony, Yogesh Takawale, Rakesh Dhurv