MUMBAI, India - Australia's cricket selectors went through one of their most agonising deliberations before naming the team to play the three-day match against Mumbai here tomorrow.

With the first Test only a few days away, the Aussies wanted to pick a near Test line-up and spent a long time sweating over the make-up of the team. In the end they had a dollar each way by opting to rest Damien Martyn, Michael Kasprowicz and Jason Gillespie.

It was predictable Martyn and Kasprowicz wouldn't play as skipper Steve Waugh had indicated the Australians wanted to field a shadow Test team.

He confirmed Gillespie wasn't injured and the South Australian will certainly be back for the Test, starting on February 27.

So the battle for Test selection has come down to Damien Fleming versus Colin Miller.

The nub of the matter is that the pitch at Brabourne Stadium for the game against Mumbai will be a spinner's paradise while the Test venue at nearby Wankhede Stadium is likely to be less so.

Mumbai coach Ashok Mankad has picked three spinners in his team for the warm-up match and said the pitch would offer nothing to seamers.

Waugh agreed in principle but has inspected the Test pitch and described it as quite firm.

"The Test wicket looks a lot different to the one here so we had to work out whether we were playing to win this game here or preparing for the Test," Waugh said.

"And we've probably got prepare for the Test match, where the wicket looks a lot harder than the one here and will probably offer a bit more bounce and sideways movement."

Reading between the lines, the probably suits Fleming's style of bowling. Part of the Australians' thinking is that Gillespie did enough in the opening match at Nagpur and was ready for his Test return after a layoff with a hamstring strain. There is also probably a tendency to keep their fastest bowler in cotton wool given his susceptibility to injury.

Trying to come up with a formula for success in India has proven be an almost insolvable headache, with the Australians - and particularly Waugh - keen to stick to a well-used plan of bowling three quicks and one spinner.

But Miller has been in such outstanding form lately, his case is hard to overlook.

One way around impasse would be to play five bowlers and use Adam Gilchrist as a specialist No.6 batsman but Waugh ruled that out.

"We've never really discussed it - maybe once or twice it's been brought up.

"We've won 15 Test matches in a row with the same formula and it works pretty well.

"Sometimes when you have five bowlers it can be pretty hard to mix and match and give everyone a fair go. And we've got guys like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, who love to bowl all day.

"So I think we'll stay with the six specialist batters."

While the Australians will play McGrath and Warne in the game against Mumbai, the match has lost some of its gloss with the withdrawal of Sachin Tendulkar, who has a minor calf strain.

Waugh, master of the mind games that he is, inferred the master strokemaker probably could have played if he wanted to - but chose not to face up to the Australians.

"It doesn't concern us who we play and if he doesn't want to play then that's his choice."

Mumbai will take in an array of spinners against Australia - left-armer Nilesh Kulkarni, off-spinner Ramesh Pawar and legspinner Sairaj Bahutule, who was considered unlucky not to be picked for the Test team.

AUSTRALIA: Steve Waugh (captain), Michael Slater, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Mark Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Damien Fleming, Colin Miller, Glenn McGrath.

MUMBAI (from): Sameer Dighe (capt), Wasim Jaffar, Vinayak Mane, Jatin Paranjpye, Vinod Kambli, Amol Mazumdar, Sairaj Bahutule, Romesh Pawar, Nilesh Kulkarni, Rajesh Pawar, Robin Morris, Paras Mhambrey, Kunal More. Hours of play are 9.30am to 4.30pm (3pm to 10pm AEDT).

© 2001 AAP