Rudra Pratap Singh is caught in the rain during a training session in Belfast on Thursday. (AP)

Belfast: Grappling with a cold bug and struggling to stay afloat in the three-match series, a depleted India face a do-or-die battle when they meet South Africa in the crucial second one-dayer here on Friday.

Paceman Sreesanth was on Thursday ruled out of the match. The Kerala bowler will sit out for the second successive game, while there is also a question mark on the availability of Gautam Gambhir who is down with fever.

“Sreesanth has not recovered as yet and will miss Friday’s game,” captain Rahul Dravid said.

With a flu virus reducing the dressing room virtually to a medical ward, India struggled to find 11 fit men in the first one dayer and the think-tank was forced to field two spinners — Ramesh Powar and Piyush Chawla.

The Indians, however, have something to cheer about on Thursday with wicketkeeper-batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has sat out all the matches so far, expected to take the field in the crucial tie.

Heavy rain meant that the Indian team could not have an outdoor practice session at Stormont on Thursday afternoon and instead had to hit the gymnasium.

Dravid is looking for an improvement in both departments of the game.

“We could have batted better at the death and could have bowled better in the middle overs,” he said.

He, however, said only a captain’s knock from Jacques Kallis denied the Indians a victory.“We probably missed an extra seamer in the last game. I thought we gave away too many runs in the first 20 overs. Hopefully, we’ll have the right balance for tomorrow’s game,” the skipper said.

Despite being up 1-0 in the three-match series, Kallis refuses to be complacent and the seasoned campaigner said he was expecting an Indian backlash. “It’s definitely an advantage to go one-up in the series. But you have two more matches to go and I think it’s going to be interesting,” he said.

TEAMS

India (from): Rahul Dravid (captain), M.S. Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Zaheer Khan, Piyush Chawla, Ramesh Powar, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Rudra Pratap Singh, Robin Uthappa, Rakesh Patel, Ranadeb Bose, Arjun Yadav

South Africa (from): Jacques Kallis (captain), Mark Boucher, A.B. de Villiers, Jean-Paul Duminy, Herschelle Gibbs, Andrew Hall, Justin Kemp, Charl Langeveldt, Andre Nel, Makhaya Ntini, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn, Thandi Tshabalala, Morne van Wyk.

Umpires: Mark Benson and Billy Bowden. TV: Aleem Dar

Match Referee: Alan Hurst.

Live telecast from 3 pm (Neo Sports, SAB TV).

NUMBERs GAME

The following are a few interesting milestones ahead of India’s second ODI versus South Africa in Belfast on Friday:
650 — ODIs India have played till date. Only Australia and Pakistan (659 each) have featured in more
50— is what Sachin needs to reach 15,000 runs
5 — is what Sourav requires for his 100th victim
5 — ODIs India have lost in a row to SA
2 — is the number of times India have beaten South Africa in the last 10 ODIs
1 — is what Sourav needs to get his 100th ODI catch

COMPILED BY MOHANDAS MENON