And so begins the great zigzag via Vizag, with England due to land in bustling Hyderabad on Sunday for a five-Test series against India that begins on Thursday; the start of an eight-week tour during which they fly back and forth across the country before ending up in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The first-timers will almost certainly coo at the snow-capped peaks when they reach Dharamsala for the series finale in mid-March, with the size of the task between now and then pretty much on a par. It has been 11 years and one month since India last felt the pain of a Test series defeat on home soil – a memorable 2-1 triumph by Alastair Cook’s side in late 2012 – and no side has even held them to a draw along the way.
Australia took a 1-0 lead in 2016 and managed to burgle one back at 2-0 down 12 months ago. England won the first Test of what became a pretty grim pandemic tour in 2021. But these three losses were anomalous for India, their only setbacks during a scorching run of 36 victories from 46 Tests at home. Two one-off World Test Championship finals in seaming English conditions may have seen them finish second in recent years but their own patch has become a citadel.
Of the current India squad, only three know any different, with Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja all present in Nagpur when Cook’s class of 2012 carved out a significant slice of English history. All three have been central to the subsequent juggernaut, Kohli imposing himself as captain and master batsman, Ashwin and Jadeja as a lethal spin partnership that has led to both touching all-rounder status.
Things have changed a little since England were last here. Rohit Sharma has replaced Kohli as captain, while the D’Artagnan-like swish of Rishabh Pant – instrumental to India’s 3-1 win then – is yet to return after an awful car crash in late 2022. Cheteshwar Pujara appears to have been pensioned off, while Mohammed Shami is not fit for the first two Tests, that World Cup final defeat to Australia – an undeserving end to a personally golden campaign – his most recent outing.
Even with a couple of notable absentees, plus one or two others spots refreshed by India’s ever-broadening talent factory, the tried and trusted make for ominous opposition and not least with the SG ball in hand. Ashwin, the world’s No 1 Test bowler and 10 wickets short of 500, is one of three Indians in the top five of the International Cricket Council rankings, along with the whip-crack pace bowling of Jasprit Bumrah and Jadeja’s waspish left-arm spin.
So what are the chances of Ben Stokes joining Douglas Jardine (1933-34), Tony Greig (1976-77), David Gower (1984-85) and Cook as the only England men’s captains to win in India? Given the host’s recent record and a frontline England spin attack that boasts 36 Test caps – 35 of which belong to Jack Leach, returning from a lower back stress fracture – it is hard to file it anywhere other than the drawer marked “slim”.
If there is hope, a reason to get all Lloyd Christmas about things, it is possibly to be found in the fact that no side has approached this toughest of away tours the way England almost certainly will. India is the latest canvas for the Bazball project and Stokes, 13 wins from 18 Tests as full-time captain, has vowed to “do things differently” to recent visits. Whether this stretches to the final result is another matter.
Not that England claim to care about the scoreline, wedded as they are to the principle of having a go, having a laugh and seeing where it takes them. Putting aside grave concerns about their attack, hampered further by Stokes being unlikely to bowl but likely to need all his resourcefulness, this is where the chief fascination lies: how a team that has rattled along at a 4.8 runs per over for 18 months fares in a land where Ashwin weaves a sticky web and three an over has been breached by only a couple of sides.
A high-wire act on turning tracks looks on the cards, the outcome of which will probably frame England’s preparation in hindsight. Opting against warm-up matches and plumping for an 11-day training camp in Abu Dhabi has got a good few backs up but Stokes and Brendon McCullum believe there is method in what many think is madness. They can also point to the same approach before Pakistan last winter, when they dropped in like a parachute regiment and claimed an unprecedented 3-0 clean sweep.
There is the broader question of where England’s first Test series since last summer’s Ashes sits in the grand scheme of things, the franchise world swelling with every passing week. It is being staged away from the major centres in India, too – Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam (aka Vizag), Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamshala – although whether this points to lesser status for the series is up for debate. The Board of Control for Cricket in India has more than 25 international venues to keep sweet and the middle three missed out on World Cup matches.
Either way, and whichever way they go about it, England have a mountain to climb.
