England: Are You Ready? (Is India?)

--> -->

Sreelata YellamrazuNov 13 2008

by Siddharth Raman

Barely giving both the fans and players time to recover from the success of the Border Gavaskar trophy, comes a seven ODI and two test series between India and England.

owais shah flintoff Bklte 17022

England are touring India after two and a half years and one wonders whether they are happy with their level of preparation for the kind of schedule that is in store for them.

kp u6JEF 17022

Under the captaincy of Kevin Pietersen they started on a high by whitewashing the Proteas at home in the ODI series. However, the events of the past two weeks have made the tabloids work overtime. The English team were definitely enamoured by the lure of moolah offered by a Texan billionaire and quite evidently it blurred the focus of the players on cricket. Some of them had even made Christmas shopping lists which was going to be funded by the twenty million dollar prize money! Add to this, the controversy which involved Allen Stanford and Matt Prior's better half did anything but help the players focus on the game. The icing on the cake for all of this was the way the team played in the final - a score of 99 all out was not exactly what you would expect in a much hyped T20 final.At the end of the whole saga Peter Moores openly said that it was time for his players to do some serious introspection.

Now that they know they are representing their country the players are bound to lift their games a notch or two higher. Another wake up call for the England team came in the recent warm up game in Mumbai where they were skittled out for 98 against a regulation club side.

However when the Indians take the field at Rajkot for the first ODI they would expect the England side that played some exciting one day cricket against South Africa, not the one that has been circumnavigating the globe for the past two weeks.

gary dhoni Bl17E 17022

India on the other hand will have quite a few fresh legs for the ODI series. More than half the number of player in the squad for the first 3 ODI's were not a part of the Border Gavaskar trophy squad. This Indian ODI team under the leadership of Mahandra Singh Dhoni has been having a dream of sorts from the Commomwealth bank series down under. They have pulled off India's first series victory in Australia as well as Sri Lanka. Looking at this team it gives one a feeling that there is a clear vision on building a team for the 2011 World Cup. In Ishant Sharma they have a world class pace bowler who can be ably supported by Zaheer Khan and RP Singh/ Munaf Patel. It would be interesting to see how many bowlers Dhoni decides to play. The option of using Sehwag as a full time bowler will definitely be there at the back of his mind and if he does so then he a plethora of team combinations will be made available, making it easier for him to decide the team composition on different pitches. The batting department too looks pretty solid with Sehwag,Gambhir,Yuvraj,Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and Dhoni who will be joined later in the series by Sachin Tendulkar.

{Catch up on your reading:News curios: Balls Flying Over Nets Leave England-India Cagey? }

England will be depending heavily on Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff to hold their batting order together. The Indian team will definitely be weary of Freddie Flintoff,whose new found enthusiasm has taken his game to another level. Their pace bowling attack looks a good one on paper and they would also want Samit Patel and Graeme Swann to be used as wicket taking options rather than just being there to contain the batsmen. Ravi Bopara is the all rounder in this squad and it would be interesting to see how effective his medium pacers would be on the Indian dust bowls.

(only on crickblog:Freddie Flintoff Seeks Experienced Wings to Fly )

Previous India England series have given us some memorable contests and especially unforgettable sights ( bare chested shirt waving anyone? ). Sehwag and Tendulkar matching each other shot for shot in the ODI at Kanpur during the 2001-02 series,the thrilling finale of the same series at the Wankhede, Ganguly returning the favour to Flintoff atop the Lords balcony and more recently Robin Uthappa guiding India through a thrill a minute run chase at the Oval, one would expect a similar level of cricket to be played in this series. An Indian fan and English fan both would like to see their side winning this series , a cricket fan would love to see some enthralling cricket interspersed with KP's switch hit!