India, holding the psychological advantage of having beaten the islanders in the July triangular series in Colombo, will seek to re-establish their batting strength with star Sachin Tendulkar back at his favourite desert venue again.

Tendulkar rocked the Australians to single-handedly ensure a dramatic title win for India in the April tournament at the Sharjah Stadium and his fellow batsmen, including skipper Mohd Azharuddin will be eager to rally around him.

Azharuddin, who will play his 302nd one-dayer tomorrow, has not been among runs of late and the motivation could be the fact that he is just 94 runs short of former West Indian opener Desmond Haynes's world record tally of 8,648 runs.

But their task will be cut out here as Zimbabwe,the third team, will also be no pushover after their win in the third and final one-dayer and in the one-off Test over India at home.

But, unlike the knockout format, which also saw Sri Lanka kayoed by eventual champions South Africa in Dhaka, the teams will play each other twice in the leauge stage in this $ 85,000 (approx Rs 4,05,000) and will have the chance to bounce back even in case of an early reverse.

Sri Lanka have suffered a major setback in the absence through injury of their bowling spearhead Muttiah Muralitharan after the off-spinner was put out due to a shoulder injury suffered while fielding against South Africa in Dhaka.

Murali broke down during nets ahead of the team's arrival here, but has been brought as the 15th member and could be included.