Form and history do not favour England

Nasser Hussain has this happy knack of saying the right thing at the right time. The 33- year-old Indian born England captain has earned a few PR points on arrival in India with his not so highly rated squad. And he has also not wasted much time in putting the pressure on India.

Cheerily admitting that England were the underdogs in the ensuing Test series, Hussain has cleverly named India as the favourites, which means that the media and public will be gunning for the home team if they fail to win the series.

Most of his statements have carried the "we have come to learn" refrain. "To bowl to guys like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Venkatsai Laxman, and face Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh will be a good education," he said. "With a young team like this, beating India in their own backyard is a huge challenge. There's a big difference in the game in India. It will take a lot of effort by the younger lads to get used to it." No big talk, no tall promises. Just very matter of fact ­ and strategically disarming.

Indeed, both current form and past history would seem to be against an England win. At home, India have always been a formidable side against any opposition, a fact driven home by the great triumph over Australia earlier this year. And England on the face of it, are several notches below the Australians as the Ashes contest this summer in England proved.

Even a close look at the England squad, will not set the pulses of Indian cricket fans in India racing. There are very few well-known names, but even among them, there is no match-winner or a player likely to draw crowds. In the past even if the England teams were rather ordinary, there were dominant personalities like Dexter, Barrington, Lock, Underwood, Knott, Greig, Gower, Botham, Boycott, Gatting and Hick who attracted considerable attention among the India media and the public. In the present squad there are hardly any names that can be taken in the same breath. To a certain extent, Hussain because of his Indian background, Butcher because of his one heroic knock in the Ashes series, and a few others like Trescothick, Thorpe, Ramprakash and White may attract some attention. But the other team members are, generally speaking, the faceless and nameless ones.

Of course, India is a great place for nobodies to come good and that is an encouraging thought for the Englishmen. One remembers a certain John Lever coming here in 1976-77 as a reserve seam bowler and then taking ten wickets on his Test debut at New Delhi to star in the first of three successive victories before emerging as man of the series.

History though is against Hussain. Out of nine campaigns by England teams in India over the past 68 years (if one ignores the Golden Jubilee Test played in 1979-80), only three have been victorious. Jardine in 1933-34, Greig in 1976-77 and Gower in 1984-85 held their head high at the end of the tour and the last two triumphs were achieved against the odds. It will certainly be an unexpected result if Hussain is able to hold his head high at the end of the three-Test series. It is more likely that he will join Dexter, Lewis, Fletcher and Gooch as England captains who have lost Test rubbers in India. The contests in 1951-52 and 1963-64 were shared.

Like so many England teams in the past, this one too is not at full strength. The absence of Stewart, Gough, Caddick and Croft will undoubtedly be felt but Hussain has turned this to an advantage by saying that the young team is eager to do well. "The enthusiasm is terrific and everyone is doubly keen to perform," he said on arrival. Indeed, the unknown quantity could well become the team's strength if the Indians display even the slightest touch of over confidence. For that matter, one recalls that Lewis' team in 1972-73 and Gower's squad of 12 years later were not rated highly. But while the latter turned a 0-1 deficit to win the Test series ­ the only team to come back and win in India ­ Lewis' unheralded team surprised a cocky Indian side in the first Test before going down by slender margins in the next two games to lose the rubber narrowly.

The script at the start of the series is not likely to be different from what happened in 1992-93. That time, the Indians came back from a none too successful series in South Africa but found the England team easy prey and won all three Test matches, two of them by an innings.

This time too the Indians are bound to come back from an unsuccessful tour of South Africa. Whether the rest of the script follows the pattern of nine years ago remains to be seen.