The horror seems far from over as an injury-ravaged Indian cricket team gears up for the third cricket one-dayer against England on Friday, still looking for that elusive win which would lift the sagging morale of the battle-weary side.
Trailing 0-1 in the five-match series after being
whitewashed 0-4 in the Tests, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men have reasons to feel fatalistic ahead of the day-night encounter.
The visitors are worried on the count of lack of bowling firepower in their ranks and are resigned to the fact England would chase down any total they can rustle up in remaining one-dayers.
Dhoni laid himself bare to media after losing the second one-dayer at Rose Bowl on Tuesday, fretting about the sameness of his fast bowlers and their general lack of pace.
"If it doesn't swing, we struggle. Most of our bowlers are in the 120-130 kmph range and it becomes very difficult," or words to similar effect was Dhoni's lament and tomorrow could just make his worst fears come true.
The pitch at the Oval offers bounce but no sideways movement and the gentle pace of Indian seamers could turn out to be fodder for England batsmen.
Dhoni concedes Praveen Kumar is not his best option in death overs and he is forced to keep Munaf Patel a lot towards the end than in the initial overs.
If India can't strike early, it is a given that the rest of the overs would be savaged by the in-form England batsmen.
A similar thing occurred in the second one-dayer where India ran up a decent total but were powerless to stop England from romping home with seven wickets to spare.