Factbox for the third Test between Australia and India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground starting Friday:
Head-to-head:
Australia and India first played each other in 1947-48. Australia won the five-Test series 4-0. Overall, the two sides have met 62 times with Australia winning 29 Tests and India 14. Eighteen Tests ended in draws and one was tied.
The home advantage plays a big role in Australia-India matches. While India have not lost a series at home to Australia since 1969-70, they have only ever won four Tests in Australia.
India won their most recent series 2-1 in India two years ago, but were beaten 3-0 when they last toured Australia four seasons ago.
Recent form:
Australia have not lost a series at home to any team in more than a decade. The last series they lost at home was 2-1 to the West Indies in 1992-93. They have won eight of their last 10 series, home and away. They warmed up for this series with a 2-0 clean sweep of Zimbabwe at home.
India have won three of their last 10 series, all of them at home. They have won seven of their last 70 Tests away from home. In their most recent series, they drew 0-0 at home to New Zealand.
The first match of this series, in Brisbane in early December, ended in a draw after most of the first three days was washed out by rain.
India took the advantage in the series with a shock four-wicket win in the second Test in Adelaide, their first Test victory in Australia in 22 years.
Key players:
Australia -- Matthew Hayden. Ranked among the world's top three batsmen with West Indian Brian Lara and India's Rahul Dravid. Has a career average of 56.78 in 48 matches. Set the world record for highest individual Test score with his 380 against Zimbabwe in October. The only player in history to score more than 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year three years running. Has scored 37, 99, 12 and 17 in the first two Tests.
India -- Rahul Dravid. After scoring a masterly 233 in the first innings of the second Test, Dravid hit the winning runs in the second innings in his unbeaten 72. Captain Saurav Ganguly said later: "He batted like God." Dravid has scored 16 centuries, including four double hundreds.
The 30 year-old's 303 run partnership for the fifth wicket with centurion Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman was the second time the pair had formed a match-winning combination against Australia, after their fifth-wicket stand of 376 in the second innings in Calcutta two years ago.
Venue:
Melbourne Cricket Ground: Australia's most famous sporting stadium, the MCG was the venue for cricket's first Test way back in 1877, and also hosted the 1991-92 World Cup final. It was also the centrepiece for the 1956 Olympics and has hosted a variety of major events, including international football matches and rugby union and rugby league Tests. It is also the venue for Australian Rules national league matches each week in the southern winter and hosts the AFL grand final in September.
The stadium's capacity has dropped from 90,000 to 70,000 as some stands are being rebuilt for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Australian captain Steve Waugh said on Wednesday: "The atmosphere here on Day 1 is amazing."
