<p>The opening fixture of the five-match one-day series between Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s young bunch and an exciting England team on Friday will feature several firsts, but it’s drawing first blood that will be uppermost on the minds of Dhoni and Alastair Cook.<br />The force is with England after their hegemony on home patch over a beleaguered, bruised and battered rag-a-tag outfit that kept losing a player a week on an average to injury, but India in their own backyard are always a formidable entity, with or without the marquee names that catapulted them to the status of World champions in April.<br />Dhoni might deny the existence of psychological scars from the unqualified disaster that the England tour was, but there is no denying the fact that the events in Old Blighty will be weighing on the minds of those that went on that forgettable sojourn, many of whom are a part of this 15.<br /><br />From an Indian perspective, the first match could have been held at a different venue. The Rajiv Gandhi International stadium has been particularly unkind to the home team – India have lost all three one-dayers here – and therefore not quite the happy hunting ground Dhoni might have been hoping to return to in a bid to get his team’s flagging fortunes back on track.</p>.<p>The dice looks heavily loaded against the hosts and very much in favour of England, particularly with the likes of Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Munaf, Nehra and Harbhajan – all key men during the World Cup campaign – missing for one reason or the other. Saying that, one man’s misfortune always is another’s opportunity, and that’s another pressing reason why this Indian side can’t be written off.<br /><br />England are undoubtedly the better prepared squad, having landed here nearly ten days back, gotten used to the conditions, played two practice matches and generally settled in gradually but nicely. By contrast, the Indians arrived in dribs and drabs, have had just two net sessions as a unit but are still required to hit the ground running. A tall order that -- the names also suggest that that’s a bridge too far for them -- by any stretch of the imagination.<br /><br />If there’s one thing the one-dayers in England reiterated, it is that India’s bowling reserves are close to running on empty. Even as a depleted batting line-up carried enough firepower to make light of unfamiliar conditions and aggressive bowling from the hosts; India’s bowling was singularly unimpressive, lacking both penetration and economy, allowing England to scale down even imposing targets with a dash of arrogance.<br /><br />There are few survivors now from that bowling unit – only Praveen Kumar, R Vinay Kumar and R Ashwin of those that played have made the cut – and hence the pressure of expectations on the young, untested shoulders of Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, S Arvind and Rahul Sharma will be enormous. Dhoni and Fletcher’s first task will be to calm the charges down, channel their excitement and nervous energy, and also familiarise them, at least theoretically, with the changed playing conditions that entail a new ball at either end and the revamped Power Play structure.<br /><br />Despite the big boys’ unavailability, the batting continues to possess a mix of flair and dash, fortified by the availability of Gautam Gambhir who might bat at number three. England’s young pace attack ought to find the going tougher on flat tracks loaded with runs, but it’s how well the Indian bowlers acquit themselves against the likes of Keiswetter, Cook, Bell, Trott and Pietersen, not to mention the precocious Jonny Bairstow, that will decide what course Act One, and the series itself, will take.<br /><br />Teams (from): India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar, R Vinay Kumar, R Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, S Arvind, Rahul Sharma. <br />England: Alastair Cook (capt), Craig Kieswetter, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Jonny Bairstow, Ravi Bopara, Alex Hales, Jos Buttler, Scott Borthwick, Samit Patel, Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Chris Woakes, Stuart Meaker.<br />Umpires: Billy Bowden (New Zealand) and Shahvir Tarapore. Third umpire: Sudhir Asnani. Match referee: Roshan Mahanama (Sri Lanka).</p>
<p>The opening fixture of the five-match one-day series between Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s young bunch and an exciting England team on Friday will feature several firsts, but it’s drawing first blood that will be uppermost on the minds of Dhoni and Alastair Cook.<br />The force is with England after their hegemony on home patch over a beleaguered, bruised and battered rag-a-tag outfit that kept losing a player a week on an average to injury, but India in their own backyard are always a formidable entity, with or without the marquee names that catapulted them to the status of World champions in April.<br />Dhoni might deny the existence of psychological scars from the unqualified disaster that the England tour was, but there is no denying the fact that the events in Old Blighty will be weighing on the minds of those that went on that forgettable sojourn, many of whom are a part of this 15.<br /><br />From an Indian perspective, the first match could have been held at a different venue. The Rajiv Gandhi International stadium has been particularly unkind to the home team – India have lost all three one-dayers here – and therefore not quite the happy hunting ground Dhoni might have been hoping to return to in a bid to get his team’s flagging fortunes back on track.</p>.<p>The dice looks heavily loaded against the hosts and very much in favour of England, particularly with the likes of Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Munaf, Nehra and Harbhajan – all key men during the World Cup campaign – missing for one reason or the other. Saying that, one man’s misfortune always is another’s opportunity, and that’s another pressing reason why this Indian side can’t be written off.<br /><br />England are undoubtedly the better prepared squad, having landed here nearly ten days back, gotten used to the conditions, played two practice matches and generally settled in gradually but nicely. By contrast, the Indians arrived in dribs and drabs, have had just two net sessions as a unit but are still required to hit the ground running. A tall order that -- the names also suggest that that’s a bridge too far for them -- by any stretch of the imagination.<br /><br />If there’s one thing the one-dayers in England reiterated, it is that India’s bowling reserves are close to running on empty. Even as a depleted batting line-up carried enough firepower to make light of unfamiliar conditions and aggressive bowling from the hosts; India’s bowling was singularly unimpressive, lacking both penetration and economy, allowing England to scale down even imposing targets with a dash of arrogance.<br /><br />There are few survivors now from that bowling unit – only Praveen Kumar, R Vinay Kumar and R Ashwin of those that played have made the cut – and hence the pressure of expectations on the young, untested shoulders of Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, S Arvind and Rahul Sharma will be enormous. Dhoni and Fletcher’s first task will be to calm the charges down, channel their excitement and nervous energy, and also familiarise them, at least theoretically, with the changed playing conditions that entail a new ball at either end and the revamped Power Play structure.<br /><br />Despite the big boys’ unavailability, the batting continues to possess a mix of flair and dash, fortified by the availability of Gautam Gambhir who might bat at number three. England’s young pace attack ought to find the going tougher on flat tracks loaded with runs, but it’s how well the Indian bowlers acquit themselves against the likes of Keiswetter, Cook, Bell, Trott and Pietersen, not to mention the precocious Jonny Bairstow, that will decide what course Act One, and the series itself, will take.<br /><br />Teams (from): India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar, R Vinay Kumar, R Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, S Arvind, Rahul Sharma. <br />England: Alastair Cook (capt), Craig Kieswetter, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Jonny Bairstow, Ravi Bopara, Alex Hales, Jos Buttler, Scott Borthwick, Samit Patel, Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Chris Woakes, Stuart Meaker.<br />Umpires: Billy Bowden (New Zealand) and Shahvir Tarapore. Third umpire: Sudhir Asnani. Match referee: Roshan Mahanama (Sri Lanka).</p>
