Injured Australian fast man Doug Bollinger remains in contention to take part in the second Test against India after scans revealed only a very minor abdominal strain sustained on the final day of the epic first match at Mohali.
Bollinger's pre-lunch exit from the field was a major factor in the tourists' defeat, so news that he may still be able to play at Bangalore was a relief to an Australian team still downcast after losing one of the greatest Test matches in recent memory.
No-one will ever know how much fitter Bollinger might have been if he had not been forced to fly from a T20 tournament in South Africa a mere three days before the start of the Test.
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"It probably doesn't help," said Australian captain Ricky Ponting of Bollinger's T20 duty.
"But he'd been bowling, and that's one positive for Doug that he'd been playing competitive cricket.
"He probably hasn't been bowling the amount of overs in the Champions League that some of the others have had coming over here, but the facts are that he's been playing, he arrived a couple of days before the game.
"I thought his work before that was very good, I thought his spell (yesterday) was probably the best he's bowled during the game, so disappointing for him to go down at the end there, it hurt us a lot."
Bollinger's value to Australia was underlined by his presence in both the Test and limited overs teams of the year announced at the ICC's annual awards.
Sturdy opening bat Simon Katich was the other Australian in the Test team of the year, while Ricky Ponting was named captain of the one day side of the year, which also featured Shane Watson, Mike Hussey and Ryan Harris.
India, meanwhile, have lost opener Gautam Gambhir and paceman Ishant Sharma for the second Test.
Their places are likely to be taken by the batsman Murali Vijay and the mercurial right-arm quick Sreesanth.
