England know that runs alone will matter

But Trescothick has, over the past few years, proved himself to be the inspiration for England at the top of the order. Apart from one blip in Australia nearly four years ago, Trescothick has made runs against everyone, and indeed his batting last summer showed he can make runs against the Aussies too.

What is, or has been, so impressive about him is that he is as adept at taking the attack to pacemen and spinners alike, and one has the feeling already before a ball has been bowled that England will need someone to take on the Indian spinners effectively.

Trescothick’s absence means that others will have to fill a big gap and the rest of the top order have either been short of runs, injured or both.

The major lesson they will all have tried to learn from the first part of the winter is that even if you think you have enough runs on the board, you don’t. Big first-innings totals are likely to make the difference in this series and England will well remember making over four hundred in Multan, with Trescothick making the best part of 200 himself, yet conspiring somehow to subsequently lose the match and the balance of power in the series at the same time.

They will be desperately keen to make amends for that at the start of this new series but, I have to say, the lack of cricket at the start of a major tour like this just does not make sense.

The captain has also been ruled out of the first Test, and Kevin Pietersen, another major player, although expecting to be fit for the Test, has missed out on essential time on the field because of his injury and the others are just not in the groove yet and will be hoping that the big match atmosphere sparks them into their best form. It is not ideal.

Against them are a side which has started to play well again after the success in the one-day matches in Pakistan, a side that has been playing high quality cricket with just a short break going into this series, and which would therefore appear to be much the better prepared of the two teams.

All of England is wondering how its team will play the spinners. Already reports from Nagpur are of a grassless pitch with a hint of early dust. Given that India have two of the world’s great spinners in Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh while England’s three have but three Test wickets between them, it does not seem hard to assume that the home side will seek to take advantage of this one area of disparity between the two teams.

It is the one weakness that England will have to work doubly hard to overcome.

(PMG)