MELBOURNE, Australia, 25 December 2003 — The return of searing speedster Brett Lee will be a challenge for India but he won’t be as potent without bowling partner Glenn McGrath, skipper Saurav Ganguly said here yesterday.

Australia are relying on the express pace of Lee after his recovery from injury to help beat India in the Boxing Day Test here and level the four-match series heading into the New Year Test in Sydney.

India upset the world champions with a magnificent come-from-behind four-wicket victory in the second Adelaide Test, requiring Steve Waugh’s Australians to win the final two games to reclaim the Border Gavaskar Trophy.

Lee, who missed the first two matches of the series with an abdominal injury, is the only change in the Australian team which despite hitting 563 in its first innings, lost to Ganguly’s tourists in a stunning turnaround in Adelaide last week.

Lee, who comes in for Jason Gillespie — out with a groin injury — has an impeccable record in the two Tests he has played against India, taking 13 wickets at an average of 14.15.

Australia are banking on him blasting out the strong Indian batting lineup with pace and venom in the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in a replay of his debut in the same Test four years ago. Ganguly admitted Lee’s pace would be a challenge but said it was a different story taking him on without experienced strike bowler McGrath at the other end.

“He’s got a bit of pace,” Ganguly said yesterday. “But I’ve always thought of bowling like batting, you bowl in pairs.

“And without McGrath at the other end, it’s a different ball game. Suddenly, he’s become the spearhead of the attack.”

With regular new ball bowlers McGrath and Gillespie injured, Lee will open the bowling with either Brad Williams or Nathan Bracken, depending on who is selected in the starting eleven. Bracken has played one Test and Williams has two caps, which means Australia will be fielding one of its most inexperienced new ball attacks in a long time.

India, in contrast, looks like it will be at full strength with spearhead Zaheer Khan to return from injury. He was the most dangerous of the Indian bowlers in the drawn first Test in Brisbane but missed the win in Adelaide with a hamstring strain.

He will probably come in for either Ashish Nehra or Irfan Pathan, who replaced Zaheer in Adelaide.

But India’s real strength lies in the batting, which Ganguly said was about to improve further with Sachin Tendulkar set to rise from his form slump.

Tendulkar, regarded as the best batsman in the world, has made scores of 0, 1 and 36 in this series without looking settled at the crease.

Ganguly said the situation was about to change ahead of the third and fourth Tests, which will be played back to back.

“I can’t remember Sachin going through a series without putting up a big score,” he said. “That’s good for us because these are the two crucial Tests and if he fires we are going to be in a very good position.

“The other batsmen have done well in the past two Tests which has put us in a good position and if Sachin can do well in the next two, with the other guys firing as well, then it’ll be helpful for us in deciding the series.”

Steve Waugh said his side wouldn’t get too carried away about the two batsmen who have so far cursed Australia’s bowlers with their seemingly unbreakable partnerships: Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman.

Asked if Australia had come up with a plan to negate those two, Waugh said: “We’ve had a chat about certain players and we know we have to do some things a little bit differently but basically you can’t change too much the way you play a Test match — the intensity is key for us.

“We have to play with intent and pressure the opposition and if we do that we know we can force mistakes.”

Waugh said regaining lost ground in this series was a matter of better catching and making sure Australia’s batsmen didn’t repeat the second innings collapse in Adelaide. “We’re not far off the mark; we had a couple of bad sessions and dropped some catches in Adelaide.

“It was a great result for India but you can’t read too much into it because we had one a bad day — we’re entitled to have a bad day occasionally.”