Tourists’ baggage has weight of heavy defeat

Do England, he was asked today, still consider themselves a threat to the Indian team after the loss? ‘‘We’ve been in this position before, down a game or two, but we’ve bounced back and gone on to win Test series as well’’, he replied.

‘‘But yes, the position we’re in now is something that we’re going to have to address over the next few days. We’re just going to have to learn from the few mistakes we made in this game here, go to Nagpur and practice well on Monday and Tuesday.’’

They will need to practice really hard to get over this inept display and hit top gear for the real thing. Against the trundle of Powar and the fast but relatively guileless pace of VRV Singh and Munaf Patel, the tourists appeared as though they’d left their wits behind at Heathrow.

They’ll have to play out of their skins to counter the likes of Harbhajan, Kumble and Irfan, Sehwag, Dravid and Sachin.

Tour openers are admittedly not played to notch up results but the eight-wicket loss showed little evidence — in batting, bowling or, crucially, close-in fielding for the spinners — of either the all-conquering team of the past two years or one that has come prepared to beat India.

This much Vaughan acknowledged. ‘‘Yes, we haven’t played to our potential and it wasn’t a great game for us. But full credit to the Indians.’’

The England captain has much on his mind and today’s scorecard is only one of the problems he’s grappling with. Midway through today’s play came the rumour, later confirmed, that his deputy Marcus Trescothick would be flying home immediately for ‘‘personal reasons’’. It’s not just Trescothick’s fine batting that the team will miss; Vaughan’s dodgy knee means the captaincy, in his absence, will pass on to either Andrew Strauss or Andrew Flintoff.

So that’s two batsmen and Numbers 1 and 2 in the heirarchy down.

All is not lost, of course; this team has been known to raise its game for the big occasions. Much depends now on would-be captains Strauss and Flintoff. Strauss totalled 25 in the match and Flintoff 3, though he had a reasonable outing with the ball. Notable contributions were by the lower-middle order — the highest scorer in the second innings was Mathew Hoggard! The bowling department, though, seems to have established some degree of stability, with all three pace bowlers fit and Simon Jones recovering fast.

They will just have to make sure they click.

Brief scores

238 for 9 and 158 for 9 (M Hoggard 42, Munaf 5/32) lost to BP XI 342 for 8 and 58 for 2 (G Gambhir 22 no).

England games on Sahara One

MUMBAI: The India-England series will be telecast on Sahara One, following a deal signed between the channel and Nimbus Communications, who hold the TV rights. It’s good news for the average viewer because Sahara One is a free-to-air channel. No details of the deal were available. Shailendra Singh, head of Sahara One, refused to divulge any but gave this assurance: ‘‘The channel is free on air so there won’t be any fears of cable blackouts.’’

Sahara One will telecast all the matches — three Tests and seven ODIs — live, in addition to the pre-and post-match programmes. The feed will be from Nimbus Sport.