'India can beat Aussies in finals'

"In the absence of seniors there is pressure and it would be good for the youngsters if we were to win the trophy," said Sharma.

Rohit has played in all the games of the triangular league and scored a mere 167 runs at 33.40 but a couple of his knocks have drawn heaps of praise from the likes of Ian Chappell and Sachin Tendulkar.

Chappell has been very impressed with Sharma's technique and so has been the case with Tendulkar who rates his backfoot play of good quality.

Sharma, though, feels he has not quite done justice to his talent in the series.

"I feel I could have done better and in this regard this series has been a learning experience. I have learnt how to build innings when I walked in to bat against Australia in Melbourne we were five down for 102, needing 160 runs to win.

"The one advice (Mahendra Singh Dhoni) Mahi gave me was if we stayed at the wicket the runs would come and so it happened," he said.

India put it across Australia in that game of the triangular series and Sharma feels that it's not beyond them to beat the world champions again in the best-of-three finals.

"I feel we can do it. We were 54 for 4 the other night against Australia and ended up scoring 300 runs," Sharma said.

Not one to get overawed by reputations, Sharma has taken the likes of Brett Lee as just another bowler in international circuit.

"Even when I was young, there were a few bowlers in our "galli" cricket whom batsmen used to dread to face. I always accepted the challenge as these things keep confronting you all the time.

"It doesn't matter to me if I am playing Brett Lee or Shoaib Akhtar," he said.

Sharma firmly refused to be drawn into any controversy on the amount of sledging and bad blood that has existed between the two teams this summer.

He almost pleaded to be kept out of it after questions became thicker on the recent incident of Matthew Hayden going after Harbhajan Singh in a radio interview recently.

But one thing he could not resist clarifying was the run-out he caused to his captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni in Adelaide that led to India's sorry defeat by 50 runs last on February 17.