England Cricket / Ed Hawkins / 23 December 2008 /

An India series win was the favourite in the betting and a 1-0 scoreline the jolly in the correct score market. England's overall performance had some positives but a change of personnel is needed for their next Tour, says Ed Hawkins.

So India won the two-Test series against England 1-0. Hardly the most surprising of results. In fact India were as short as Santa's Little Helper to win the contest while on the correct score market, the home side winning by the odd game in two, was the jolly as well.

Punters get a cosseting feeling from a Test series going so predictably to form and, hell, Christmas may well have had to be cancelled had England pulled off something remarkable.
Yet let us not forget that they almost did just that. In Chennai in the first Test they would have stunned everyone with a 1-0 lead had they not run into the brilliance of Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar.

In Mohali, normal service was resumed. They looked every inch the inferior outfit while India, increasingly a towering figure in the five-day game, puffed out their chests.

Since November 2000 India have lost only one home series from 15 - and that came against an Australia team which included Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. England have now won only three games from their last 19 on the road - and two of those came against an increasingly hopeless New Zealand outfit.

The teams are going in different directions. India are eyeing the No 1 spot in the world rankings. To reach it they will have to play in a more positive fashion. The current incumbents, Australia, would never have batted on so long in their pomp on the fifth day as India did in Mohali.

As for England, they were far from humiliated on a tour which pundits said was a "hiding to nothing". But that does not mean they should not look closely at their performance.

If India could be accused of negativity, then the charge sheet against England on that count is still being written. Kevin Pietersen was to blame for failing to engender an attacking spirit in the camp while some of his field placings left a lot to be desired. When he shakes Ricky Ponting's hand next summer on the morning of the first Ashes Test in Cardiff, it will not be a meeting of minds.

He has tough decisions to make before then. Alastair Cook and Ian Bell are both underperforming while Michael Vaughan and Owais Shah would be more than adequate replacements.

Cook has not scored a Test century for 21 innings and ends 2008 with an average of just 36. Bell has the same figure. At numbers two and three respectively, their brittleness is worrying enough that England, who will take on West Indies in February with favourite status, could be prone to upsetting the form book. And punters do not like that.

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