Battle Royale

Michael Vaughan must be eyeing an opportunity to make swift amends for England's pre-Christmas failings © Getty Images

Yesterday, England marked the end of their latest period of down-time by shooting each other with paint pellets at a team bonding session near Loughborough. It was apt preparation. In 11 days' time, they'll be back on their travels, braced for the next biggest challenge in a year that is rivalling the 12 tasks of Hercules for incessant and arduous demands.

India is England's next port of call, a country from which they have not emerged victorious since David Gower's tour of 1984-85 - a trip that unearthed Tim Robinson as the next big thing (briefly), and from which Graeme Fowler signed off from international duty with a double-century in his penultimate Test at Madras.

And it's not just England who have struggled out there. Recent Australian sides have described their tours of India as the final frontier, and with good reason, having failed to win out there for 35 years. Adam Gilchrist's men ended that run of reverses with a 2-1 victory in October 2004, but India nonetheless retains its mystical allure. The heat, the passion, the crowds, the culture. It's a potent mix that few touring sides have ever got the better of.

On the face of it, therefore, England don't enter the series with much of a prayer. Undeniably formidable in the preceding 18 months, their frailties were emphatically revealed on the pre-Christmas tour to Pakistan, which was billed as a lower-octane, gentle re-introduction to life on the subcontinent, but which provided two nasty jolts to the system, at Multan and Lahore.

England's think tank has doubtless spent the intervening months trying to pinpoint what went wrong in those matches, but the last five days of the India-Pakistan confrontation have given the clearest pointers yet as to how to put things right. Suffice to say, they will not knowingly be making the same mistakes again.

Their mistakes are all too apparent in hindsight. England's fundamental error before Christmas was to under-estimate the spirit and will-to-win in the opposition camp. Pakistan, we all recalled, was a talented but fractious side, capable of great deeds but equally likely to collapse in a recriminatory heap.

Under Bob Woolmer and Inzamam-ul-Haq, however, they have ditched the divisions and the upshot is a trio of remarkable victories in their last six matches. When the dust has settled on this week's events at Karachi, their achievement in fighting back from a first-morning total of 39 for 6 may come to be recalled as one of the greatest regroupings of all time.

What Pakistan have got, in fact, is what England thought they had - the tightest and most characterful cricket team currently operating. Team unity was the big trump card for England. It was what got them past Australia last summer, and it's what will keep them from coming apart at the seams in the coming months.

Unfortunately for them, they encountered a Pakistan team in December with a God-given belief in their own impregnability. How long it will last is anyone's guess - nothing lasts forever, least of all in the excitable melting-pot of Pakistani politics - but they are certainly enjoying the moment while it lasts.

England and India, therefore, are currently two peas from the same pod. Two sides with visions of global domination who have seen their status usurped by a younger, hungrier rival. Of the two, however, it is India who will be smarting the most from these recent reversals. England can lean on this latest result and deflect attention from their own failings - India, on the other hand, have no option but to turn in on themselves.

Sachin Tendulkar is struggling to recapture his lost glory © Getty Images

In the mind's eye, it was not so long ago that Sourav Ganguly and John Wright were pushing Steve Waugh's Australia to the limits in home-and-away series. But that era drew to a close two years ago, and what is more, the current hoo-ha about Ganguly's right to retain his place is masking another, potentially more devastating decline - that of Sachin Tendulkar, who has been around for as long as Australia have held the upper hand over England, and whose appetite for the fight is arguably on the wane.

Since his 194 not out at Multan on the last Pakistan tour, Tendulkar has averaged 29.23 in 15 Tests against major opposition - a statistic that has laid hidden beneath an unbeaten double century against Bangladesh. England are among Tendulkar's favourite opponents, but incontrovertibly, he is no longer the force he was at his matchless peak.

One aspect of the Karachi result will be of particular interest to England. From Irfan Pathan on the first morning to Mohammad Asif on the last, it was not, as might have been expected, the spinners on either side who provided the key breakthroughs, but the pacemen. Pakistan's trio accounted for 17 of the 20 Indian wickets to fall at Karachi, a match from which Harbhajan Singh had already been sent packing after shipping 355 runs in two wicketless Tests.

England face entering the series without the services of their stalwart spinner, Ashley Giles, but at the height of last summer, they were proud to parade the most complete seam quartet in the world. With the anticipated return from injury of Simon Jones, and the prospect of more muddled selection as India attempt to straddle two eras at once, England have an opportunity to make swift amends for their pre-Christmas failings.