Nasser Hussain will lead his side out at the Oval to face India in the deciding Test with the announcement of the squad to tour Australia scheduled for Tuesday at Lord's.

Hussain has banished any talk of Australia or the Ashes as England concentrate on trying to overcome India.

"This series is down to the wire and this is our focus completely. There will be no-one in our dressing room thinking about Australia," stressed Hussain. "This is now.

"They have got a record to break and according to a lot of people they have got the momentum and the spinners for this wicket so we have got to focus all our thoughts to these five days otherwise we will come unstuck.

"They will be a major threat here. You don't get many better spin combinations than Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. You don't get many better grounds to bowl spin on than the Oval so they are going to be a huge threat, but that's Test cricket - you have to test yourself against the best in difficult circumstances."

Hussain has already reinforced to his side that the outcome of this Test will have little bearing on the Ashes despite Mark Waugh's best efforts to begin the mind games this week by claiming: "It would be a psychological blow to them if they go into the Ashes on the back of a home series defeat by India."

The England captain stressed: "If we win this Test and series it might make you feel better and it might get people saying nice things about you, but it's an irrelevance for the Ashes tour.

"The last time we played Australia we won four series in a row and it should have been five and we still got a drubbing. When you play Australia, all that counts is how you play Australia.

"Against any other side maybe you can go in with a bit of momentum, but when you play Australia history tells you that you have to play them brilliantly to beat them and their perception of us is also irrelevant.

"If we win and everyone is talking us up, it will probably spur them on even more to keep the Pommies down. This Test will have no bearing on how we go in Australia. How we go in Australia will really be up to us to do something different to what we've done before."

England have released Ronnie Irani leaving Robert Key, Steve Harmison and Dominic Cork fighting it out for the remaining place in their line-up although they have selected seven specialist batsmen on their two previous Tests here.

Whichever line-up England decide upon, they are all acutely aware of the significance of the match being Sachin Tendulkar's 100th Test and just like the retirement of Curtly Ambrose on this very ground two years, they are keen to spoil his celebrations.

"He's been a great example to the whole of Indian cricket," added Hussain. "He's probably the best cricketer I've played against and he handles himself well at all times - even when he walked off at Lord's when that idiot walked off with him.

"Everything Sachin does is very impressive considering the amount of pressure he's under and I just hope he doesn't get any runs in this Test."