India and England go into their One Day series in different frames of mind but with the same need to re-focus. The home side have barely had time to finish their celebrations after out-classing Australia, whilst the tourists were distracted from the winter’s engagements by their Stanford sojourn. Whether it be due to hubris or humiliation, these two rivals are likely to be under-prepared for the series opener at Rajkot.

Catching the hosts cold might be England’s best hope of success. India have not played a home ODI for a year and have been inconsistent in the meantime, with their thrashing by Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup final fresh in the memory.

However, England look ill-equipped to hit the ground running. Slow adaptors to subcontinent conditions at the best of times – they lost the first four matches on their way to a 5-1 reverse on their last visit in 2006 – the tourists were shambolic in their second warm-up match in Mumbai.

It might also be wishful thinking for English followers to expect a fatigued and lethargic Indian outfit to take the field. Whilst plenty of protagonists from the Test series win over Australia will feature, there are also some fresh faces, most of who will be fired up in the quest to fill the gaping holes in the Test team.

Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina comprise a powerful middle order and can be relied to cash-in on any flying starts that Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir provide them with.

There are always plenty of questions asked of England’s batting tactics and it is again doubtful whether Matt Prior and Ian Bell can emulate their Indian counterparts.

Yet for all this, England are still an attractive proposition. They edged a close series with India last summer and were even more impressive in their dismantling of South Africa a couple of months ago. Their array of bowling options should be their trump card, although the reliance on Samit Patel’s containing offspin as the principal slow option is dangerous.

Kevin Pietersen’s honeymoon period as skipper finished abruptly in Antigua; MS Dhoni is an established One Day captain but is still basking in the glory of his impressive impact as Test captain. Over-confidence should now be more evident in the home dressing room and I expect a 4-3 scoreline that might just fall England’s way.


Written by Philip Oliver, a professional sports writer who blogs about cricket betting at the online sports betting blog from Betfair.