Captain Kev a winner even if team lose

England players need only turn up for Test in Chennai to achieve a result, says Vic Marks in the Observer. A return to India would be the most positive outcome of a ghastly winter for England so far, says Marks, and both Kevin Pietersen and Hugh Morris, England's managing director, must take some of the credit for the outcome.

We can quibble about the excessive agonising of the England squad and their demands for presidential levels of security. We can speculate about the horse trading that may have gone on after Dominic Cork had warned us that five players would not be returning to India. But the bald fact is that they are going back to India, provided their security adviser, Reg Dickason, gives his final thumbs-up. For that they should be applauded.

In his Sunday Times column, David Gower says so far, so good for Pietersen, but he is likely to face much tougher tests on and off the field this month.

Over in the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says England's top order must stand up and sit in. A Test is actually going to take place so attrition is key for England's batsmen while bowlers with nous must act as leaders.

The mutual pats on the back for a job jolly well done will last until the finish a week tomorrow. This is a return to normality which is abnormal. It is engineered, sculpted to fit pressing needs, it is cricket that is force-fed, battery farmed, genetically modified, artificially inseminated.

Brenkley also feels that this tour is strictly business, because England's return to India will be rewarded when multi-million-dollar IPL contracts are handed out.