PERTH: India and England clash here on Friday with the winners taking their place in the tri-series final against Australia in the shadow of the looming World Cup.

The hosts are enjoying extra time to prepare for Sunday’s final at Perth’s WACA ground while the tourists go at each other again.

England thrashed India by nine wickets in their last encounter and ran Australia close in their second meeting last week in Brisbane.

And that has put captain Eoin Morgan in confident mood ahead of the World Cup which England kick off against Australia in Melbourne on Feb 14. Morgan said he fancies another crack at Australia before the big event.

“The opportunity to play Australia on Sunday is huge,” he said on Thursday. “Learning how to live with lengthy breaks before important matches could prove critical for the World Cup.

“Having too much cricket on your mind can sometimes create an issue. The less guys have to think about it, the better.

“And the more we can get used to time off going into the World Cup, it would be really useful.

“I mean we’ll have stages like this throughout the World Cup that we’ll need to get ourselves ready for.”

For India, hamstrung batsman Rohit Sharma, who hasn’t played since scoring 138 against Australia at the MCG on Jan 18, will again be missing. But Sharma, who trained in Perth on Thursday, could be fit for the final if India get through.

India are winless in the series so far, but skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni feels his team are slowly building after comprehensively losing the Test series to Australia.

Opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan has suffered a poor tour and is under pressure to hold his place for the World Cup.

But Dhoni is backing the 29-year-old to find some form on Friday.

“Form is something people don’t really see — it’s an abstract,” Dhoni claimed. “You can come into form and go out of form very quickly.

“You just have to spend that 10 to 12 minutes of quality time in the middle, and everything will fall into place.

“What’s important for him will be to be himself, and bat to his strength.”

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2015

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