England return to India on Friday

Buoyed by their pre-Christmas Test form, England return to India tomorrow for the six-match ODI series on a confident note but well aware that the shortened version of the game is a different ball game altogether.

The tourists were expected to undergo the humiliation of a 3-0 whitewash in the Test series in December last year but did well to draw the remaining two after the 10-wicket drubbing in the first Test at Mohali.

But one-day statistics weigh heavily in favour of Indians who in the past two years have lost only one one-day series at home, that against world champions Australia in 2001.

England, on the other hand, lost 11 successive matches prior to their successful trip to Zimbabwe in October when they effected a 5-0 whitewash.

England will again field a raw side with only four -- skipper Nasser Hussain, Darren Gough, Nick Knight and Graham Thorpe - having played more than 50 one-dayers.

A media report tilted the balance in favour of India on the eve of the English team's departure. "India should win even more easily than they appeared likely to in the Test series," a report in the Times said on Thursday.

"Containing Sachin Tendulkar by bowling on one side of the wicket will not be so easy in matches in which wides will be called much more liberally," it said referring to the bowling tactics adopted by the English bowlers in the Tests.

Mail Cricket Editor