West Indies captain Brian Lara is likely to recover from a back injury in time to lead the defending champion in its important ICC Champions Trophy match against India on Thursday.

``Brian is still having his back worked up, but we are expecting him to be fine for the match,'' West Indies coach Bennett King said Monday.

Lara strained his back scoring 71 in a 137-run stand with Runako Morton that inspired an upset 10-run win over No. 1 Australia at Mumbai last Wednesday.

The injury kept Lara off the field during the Australian innings and Ramnaresh Sarwan led the team in his absence.

The West Indies made 234-6 on a slow wicket at Barbourne Stadium and then restricted Australia to 224-9, with fast bowler Jerome Taylor becoming the first West Indian to register a hat-trick in a limited-overs international.

Lara was not the only West Indies player missing from the field against Australia. Shivnarine Chanderpaul missed the game due to food poisoning while Fidel Edwards was ruled out with foot injury. Corey Collymore flew back home three days before the game to be with his wife Dionne for the birth of his first child. This forced the West Indies to use a local player while they fielded.

The Caribbean squad is expected to be stronger to take on India, and confident after a 4-1 series win over the Indians in April.

Collymore has rejoined the squad in Ahmadabad and Chanderpaul has also recovered, King said.

``We have got some good recent history against India, but we have still certain areas to work on,'' King said.

While West Indies defeated Australia in its opening game, India defeated England by four wickets in its first match.

World Cup champion Australia, which defeated England on Saturday, has one win from two games in Group A.

Ponting nominated for four prizes in cricket's top awards

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) _ Australia captain Ricky Ponting is in contention for four top International Cricket Council awards.

Ponting was short-listed for best international player, best Test player, best limited-overs player and best captain categories of the annual ICC awards, to be announced next month in India.

Ponting, the most dominant batsman in both versions of the game in 2006, will vie with teammate Mike Hussey, Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and Pakistan's Mohammed Yousuf for the top individual award.

Ponting, Muralitharan, Yousuf and Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne are all in the running for the test player of the year prize.

In the limited-overs player of the year award, Ponting and Hussey were short-listed with India's Yuvraj Singh and Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene.

Jayawardene, Ponting, England's Michael Vaughan and India's Rahul Dravid have been nominated for the captaincy award.

The short lists were published overnight Sunday and the winners will be announced Nov. 3 at Mumbai.

Ponting was on the short list for the international player award in 2005, when England's Ashes star Andrew Flintoff and South Africa's Jacques Kallis shared the prize.

Ponting was the ICC's limited-overs player of the year in 2002 and won back-to-back Test player of the year awards in 2003 and '04.

© The Canadian Press, 2007