The 31-year-old left-hander missed a practice session because of fever, while Nehra suffered a recurrence of an ankle problem.

"Sourav has a mild fever. We're hopeful he'll be fit to play after his situation is reviewed," said vice-captain Rahul Dravid.

Nehra bowled a vital final over on Saturday, allowing Pakistan just three runs to gain a five-run victory for the tourists to go 1-0 up in the five-match series.

India piled up a mammoth 349-7 in Karachi, but Pakistan responded bravely through a century from captain Inzamamul Haq to reply with 344-8. It was the highest scoring one-dayer in history.

Dravid said young left-arm seamer Irfan Pathan may replace Nehra, although the team management has not ruled out blooding rookie Ramesh Powar, an off-spinner and hard-hitting lower order batsman from Bombay.

Left-armer Nehra is the fourth front-line bowler missing from the attack.

Anil Kumble, Ajit Agarkar and Harbhajan Singh have not made the tour because of injury and opening bowler Zaheer Khan is yet to return to form.

"Bowling is an area we have to work on," said coach John Wright. "We are giving away too many runs.

"Kumble and Harbhajan are not here and there's no point thinking about how useful they could have been."

The good news for the tourists was that in-form batsman Venkatsai Laxman was fit to play after missing the Karachi match due to a knee injury.

Laxman, who hit three one-day centuries on the recent tour of Australia, is expected to replace Hemang Badani.

Pakistan welcome fast bowler Shabbir Ahmed back from a finger injury but coach Javed Miandad refused to confirm his line-up.

Miandad spent the weekend working with his bowlers, who conceded 20 no balls and 10 wides in the opening loss.

"It's good to have Shabbir back but we will finalise our team only on Tuesday afternoon," he said.

"There was little to choose from the two sides at Karachi and this should be another good game. But we have to be more disciplined in our bowling."

Fiery fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar believes the bowlers will gain more assistance on his home ground.

And the bowler, nicknamed the Rawalpindi Express for the lightning speed he generates, hopes to celebrate his 100th one-day international with victory over Pakistan's arch-rivals.

"It's an honour to reach a milestone but I will celebrate only if can help my team win," he said.

He deflected criticism that he was expensive in taking 2-55 on Saturday, saying: "The wicket at Karachi was a belter.

"There will be more help for the bowlers here in Rawalpindi and I am totally focussed on keeping the runs down."

India will play five one-dayers and three Test matches on their first full tour of Pakistan since 1989.

TEAMS
INDIA (from): Sourav Ganguly (captain), Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Venkatsai Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Hemang Badani, Parthiv Patel, Zaheer Khan, Laxmipathy Balaji, Irfan Pathan, Ashish Nehra, Murali Kartik, Ramesh Powar.

PAKISTAN (from): Inzamamul Haq (captain), Yousuf Youhana, Shahid Afridi, Imran Farhat, Yasir Hameed, Younis Khan, Misbahul Haq, Shoaib Malik, Abdul Razzaq, Moin Khan, Rana Naveedul Hassan, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Saqlain Mushtaq, Rao Iftikhar, Shabbir Ahmed.

Umpires: Simon Taufel (Australia) and Asad Rauf (Pakistan)