On a day when Ricky Ponting made a confidence-building 58 and Stuart Clark hinted he could be a match-winner on wearing fifth day pitches, it was the contempt with which Krejza's bowling was again treated by the Indian Board President's XI batsmen that caused Australia's sharpest headache.

The tourists' theoretical chase of 434 for victory ended in a draw at 2-127, after the President's XI had closed their innings at 4-292 an hour beyond lunch at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi Stadium.

After six overs for the day costing 63 runs from the bats of Yuvraj Singh (113) and Wasim Jaffer (93), Krejza finished the four-day fixture with the demoralising match figures of 0-199 from 31 overs.

In a way it was no real surprise that an off-spinner sporting a career record of 43 first-class wickets at 45.46 in Australia failed to trouble subcontinental batsmen.

But the sheer scale of Krejza's mauling must concern Australia's tour selectors as they chew over which of he or the injured Bryce McGain's replacement Cameron White should be pitted against India in the first Test starting on Thursday.

''For him it's all a learning curve, he's a young spin bowler, there's no doubt about that, he's got the skills, he's got the talent there but he's just got to work out for himself and we've go to work out in a pretty short time how we're going to use him best,'' Ponting said.

''We were trying to work some things out and find some things out in this game just for him to keep working.

''We've got him and Cameron [White] here ... you'd think one of those two would be in the side for the first Test.''

Krejza had appeared destined to play in at least the first Test once McGain was ruled out due to a shoulder strain, but that was before he received a painfully clear reminder of Indian prowess against slow bowling.

Second failures of the match for newly-minted opening pair Simon Katich and Matthew Hayden added to an unhappy picture for the tourists.

Katich (five) cut a short ball from seamer Manpreet Gony straight to backward point, and Hayden (10) was lbw on the front foot to a leg break from 19-year-old legspinner Piyush Chawla, who again troubled Ponting with his googly.

Twice Chawla came desperately close to bowling Ponting when he drew back to cut balls that turned just past off stump, but the skipper grew in confidence after tea.

He played several delectable drives off the bowling of Chawla and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, once advancing to deposit Ojha into the stands at long on.

Ponting's attacking strokes were less frequent, however, than those of Yuvraj and Jaffer when opposed to Krejza.