Australia's ICC Champions Trophy triumph and then its win in the series opener in Vadodara now seem a lifetime ago after India's win in the third game on Saturday left the injury-depleted tourists desperate to hit back and stay in the hunt.
The closeness of Australia's win in that opening game - after it had looked set for the easiest of victories midway through the second innings - has shown just how important it was to have hung on considering India has comfortably prevailed in the two games since.
Not helping skipper Ricky Ponting's cause has been Australia's inability to field the same XI with injuries forcing wicketkeeper Tim Paine (broken finger), fast bowler Brett Lee (elbow) and all-rounder James Hopes (hamstring) to return home.
With Nathan Bracken also unavailable for the entire series with a knee injury, Moises Henriques and Graham Manou both made their debuts for Australia on Saturday and could yet be joined in the team by another rookie in Victorian quick Clinton McKay who is rushing to India in time for game five on Saturday.
Ponting may finally get the chance to go in with an unchanged team on Monday night at the Punjab CA Stadium in Mohali though, a luxury that may not be available to his Indian counterpart MS Dhoni.
Having taken Australia apart with the bat in the past two games, making an unbeaten 124 from 107 balls and then 71 not out from 95 balls, Dhoni may be missing one of his openers in Virender Sehwag and No.3 Gautam Gambhir.
Hard-hitting Sehwag, who has scored 64 runs so far in the series, may not play after copping a Peter Siddle thunderbolt in the ankle while Gambir, who has two half-centuries to his credit already, was struck in the neck while fielding at short leg.
Indian selectors have called Dinesh Karthik into the squad in case either fails to come up.
Having probably been the biggest concern heading into the series after a lean trot, Mike Hussey has been Australia's rock so far in India with knocks of 73 (54 balls), 53 (60) and 81 not out (82).
But while Hussey has consistently fired there hasn't been enough support around him even though Ponting (twice), White and Paine have both also reached at least 50 and several others have had starts.
Siddle has arguably been Australia's best bowler so far in the series although he didn't pick up any wickets on Saturday while Doug Bollinger gave absolutely nothing away conceding just 26 runs from his 10 overs at the weekend.
Dhoni meanwhile has had plenty of help in India's two wins, with Gambhir (76) and Suresh Raina (62) both contributing to the victory in Nagpur and Yuvraj Singh (78) pacing the innings in Delhi.
With the ball India has looked to young gun Ishant Sharma, whose hauls so far include 3-50 in the opener and 2-34 in game two, and Ravindra Jadeja who has picked up six wickets including 3-35 in Nagur.
These teams have met twice previously in Mohali, with India winning a high-scoring encounter in 1996 by just six runs before Australia comfortably reached 250 a decade later for the loss of only four wickets.
Ponting refused to blame the recent losses on the injury problems his team has suffered from and also said after the game in Delhi that he's confident things will turn around soon.
If they don't then Ponting's men will have no margin for error when they contest the fifth, sixth and seventh games in Hyderabad, Guwahati and Mumbai respectively to round out the series.