NAGPUR: India will be lot more confident when they take on an injury-hit Australia in the second One-Day International on Wednesday. India Apart from India's valiant lower-order fightback, courtesy Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar, Australia did everything right and were the deserving winners in the first ODI in Vadodara.

While there is still a lot of cricket left in the seven-match series, the injuries to their frontline players have become a headache for the Australians. Brett Lee and James Hopes will miss Wednesday's game with elbow and hamstring problems, respectively, while Mitchell Johnson, who twisted his ankle in Vadodara, is also doubtful. As a result, New South Wales Blues' all-rounder Moises Hendriques has been asked to fly to India as a cover for the pacers.

Australia coach Tim Nielsen is hoping that Johnson would be able to make it for the match. "Johnson has woken up a lot better today morning than we thought. We hope that he could be drafted in for the game," said Nielsen. Left-arm medium pacer Doug Bollinger, who was impressive in the Champions League Twenty20 playing for New South Wales and right arm medium pacer Ben Hilfenhaus are expected to fill the vacant slots. In that case, Peter Siddle will have to share the workload of leading the Australian attack. India's top-order batsmen faltered while chasing 293 in the Vadodara One-dayer. Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar looked in good touch but could not continue for long. Gautam Gambhir was the only Indian batsmen to get a half-century.

Yuvraj Singh is expected to make his international comeback after being on the sidelines with a finger injury. His presence should bolster the batting line-up. The bowling, too, was lacklustre in the first match. Praveen Kumar was not penetrative and pressure will be on him to retain his place with Munaf Patel around. Harbhajan might have done his bit with the bat, but he lacked the sting in his bowling. This will be the first One-Day International in Nagpur since the new stadium was built on the city's outskirts in Jamtha. The city last hosted the deciding Test of the India-Australia series in 2008.

Teams (From): India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain and wicket-keeper), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Virat Kohli, Amit Mishra, Munaf Patel, Sudeep Tyagi. Australia: Ricky Ponting (captain), Mike Hussey, Shane Watson, Tim Paine (wicket-keeper), Shaun Marsh, Adam Voges, Cameron White, Doug Bollinger, Nathan Hauritz, Jon Holland, Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Johnson.

Mumbai, Oct. 27 The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday signalled reversal of the easy money policy, even as it left its key rates unchanged. In what it termed as the first phase of ‘exit’ of the accommodative policy, the central bank discontinued some of the liquidity support measures announced in the wake of the global financial crisis a year ago and tightened provisioning norms for bank loans to commercial real estate. The RBI Governor, Dr D. Subbarao, said, “The balance of judgment at the current juncture is that it may be appropriate to sequence the ‘exit’ in a calibrated way so that while the recovery process is not hampered, inflation expectations remain anchored. The ‘exit’ process can begin with the closure of some special liquidity support measures.” The central bank, surprisingly, restored the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) to 25 per cent of banks’ net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) from 24 per cent earlier even as it stressed the fact that raising the held-to-maturity investment limit for banks beyond the SLR would not be consistent with the international financial reporting standards.

Key rates untouched The RBI left key policy rates — the repo rate (4.75 per cent), the reverse repo rate (3.25 per cent), the bank rate (6 per cent) — and the Cash Reserve Ratio (5 per cent) unchanged in line with market expectations. In the second quarter review of Monetary Policy 2009-10 unveiled on Tuesday, the RBI revised its projection for Wholesale Price Index-based inflation at March-end 2009 to 6.5 per cent with an upward bias (from 5 per cent in the first quarter review). The central bank stuck to its GDP projection (made in July 2009) of 6 per cent with an upwards bias for FY2010. In view the borrowing requirement of the Government and the commercial sector in the remaining period of FY2010, the indicative projection of money supply growth has been revised downwards to 17 per cent from 18 per cent.

Consistent with this, aggregate deposits of scheduled commercial banks are projected to grow at a lower clip of 18 per cent (19 per cent). With the growth in bank credit to the commercial sector moderating significantly to 10.7 per cent from the high level of 27.4 per cent a year ago, the RBI pared the growth in adjusted non-food credit to 18 per cent (20 per cent). The RBI has made CRR applicable to banks borrowings through CBLO (Collateralised Borrowing and Lending Obligation). Hence, liabilities of scheduled banks arising from transactions in CBLO with the Clearing Corporation of India will be subject to the maintenance of CRR from the fortnight beginning November 21, 2009.

Export credit As part of the reversal of the easy money policy, the RBI has reduced the export credit refinance to 15 per cent of the eligible outstanding rupee export credit from 50 per cent earlier. The RBI has withdrawn the special 14-day term repo facility provided for banks to on-lend to mutual funds, non-banking financial companies and housing finance companies. The central bank also withdrew the special refinance facility, which was introduced on November 1, 2008 to provide funding to scheduled commercial banks up to 1 per cent of their NDTL as on October 24, 2008 at the repo rate. It has also increased provisioning requirement from 0.40 per cent to 1 per cent for advances to this sector which are classified as ‘standard assets’.

Managing Inflation Emphasising that anchoring inflation expectation remains a concern and core responsibility of the central bank, the Governor said, “6.5 per cent is our best estimate of the WPI inflation. We hope it will come down. “We will revisit this projection in January. Current inflation is driven largely by food prices. We are concerned about managing inflation expectations.”

NEW DELHI: Mukesh Ambani owned RIL, accused of being hand-in-glove with the ministry of petroleum of natural gas by Anil Ambani's RNRL, for the first time on Tuesday admitted before the Supreme Court that the dispute over gas supply and pricing between the companies was benefiting the Centre. RIL's counsel Harish Salve said the Mukesh Ambani group wanted to thrash out differences over the terms and conditions of the gas supply master agreement (GSMA) drafted pursuant to the family agreement, but RNRL went to the government saying RIL management was not to be trusted as they were crooks and pleaded for formulation of a gas utilisation policy (GUP). Salve said once the government framed the GUP, RNRL claimed that it was a corporate fraud, but in pleadings before the court it did not give a single evidence to prove any wrongdoing.

When a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and P Sathasivam asked whether any party - RIL or RNRL - had challenged the GUP, Salve said none had ever questioned it in a court. "The net result is that the government is a gainer in this fight. RIL had marketing freedom of gas. It lost it once the GUP came about. And RNRL thinks the GSMA did not meet the intention of the family agreement, though we say that it has been substantially complied with," Salve said. The Bench loudly wondered, "What is the issue? Can the court determine what is a suitable agreement if the entire MoU is not disclosed. Can the court study the mind of the brothers? Unless the suitable agreement is clearly made out, what could be the parameter for settling the dispute?" It then observed, "If the entire MoU talks of suitable agreement, then we can direct you to arrive at a suitable agreement through negotiations or appoint an arbitrator and ask him to find what is a suitable agreement."

Salve said it was redundant as the MoU had zero legal value as far as the decisions taken by the Board of Directors of the parent company for demerger and division of assets as per the peace plan brokered by mother Kokilaben was concerned. The main issue was the gas pricing, which the government determined, Salve said, adding the MoU had no say on this. Moreover, the private MoU between two shareholders could not bind the directors from taking a decision which was in the interest of the company, even if the decision was not in consonance with the family agreement. To a query from the Bench, RIL said it had no quarrel with RNRL's proposition that it had agreed to supply gas to RNRL at a price committed to NTPC. But what RNRL refuses to read is the caveat to that commitment, which being "subject to approval by the government".

NEW YORK: US stocks closed mostly lower in volatile trade as a weaker-than-expected consumer confidence report undermined the market outlook on the pace of economic recovery from recession.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 13.30 points (0.13%) to 9,881.26 at the market close yesterday, snapping a two-day decline.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 26.06 points (1.22%) to 2,115.79 and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index retreated 3.64 points (0.34%) to a preliminary 1,063.31.

"Conflicting economic and equity reports have contributed to the up-and-down trading on Wall Street," Charles Schwab & Co. analysts said in a client note.