Desperation was writ large on the face of the Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly [Images], who battled it out at the nets on Friday in a bid to come out of the prolonged lean patch with the bat.

Ganguly, facing criticism after a string of low scores, batted for over half an hour negotiating the pace of the right-hand left-hand combination of Ajit Agarkar [Images] and Ashish Nehra.

A few local bowlers too bowled to the Indian captain, who also did some shadow practice to improve his footwork.

Ganguly, who has shied away from the media, appeared quite serious at the nets as he tried to focus himself in the job.

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Ganguly has had a miserable run in the home series against Pakistan so far, with only 48 from five innings at a paltry average of 9.6 in the Test series.

In the ongoing one-day series, he had scores of 0 and 9 in the first two matches.

However, Ganguly can take heart from the fact that he had struck a hundred at the Keenan in 2000 when he led India to their only win at this venue against South Africa.

Meanwhile, Ganguly again kept himself away from the pre-match press meet, and instead sent his deputy Rahul Dravid [Images] to do the job.

Dravid also refused to comment on Sourav's bad patch. "I don't want to comment on it any further. We are with him all the time and he knows how to tackle his problem."