England must stifle threat of Tendulkar to maintain winning sequence

The Indian cricketers and their principal batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, who happens to be the best in the world, have arrived in England with much to prove. India have not won a series away from their own country since Kapil Dev's side beat England 2-0 in 1986. They have just lost a series in the West Indies in which Tendulkar made three noughts and averaged only 41 which will, at the least, have precipitated a state of national mourning in India and caused one young man to commit suicide.

Even if his personal batting disarray is far from disastrous, Tendulkar, being the man he is, will be more than usually determined to put the record straight now that he is back in England. A one-day hundred, something which he has never achieved against England, would be a nice way for him to start.

There is something doubly dangerous about Tendulkar when he has had a momentary lapse or two, just as there once was with Don Bradman, a great admirer of Tendulkar, who is level with Bradman having scored 29 Test hundreds – albeit in 96 Tests compared with Bradman's 52. Tendulkar's pinnacle may not reach quite as high as the Don's, which prompted evening newspaper placards to proclaim "Bradman fails" when he had been bowled for only 65 in his second innings in England at the start of the 1934 tour.

Tendulkar's progress in the coming two and a half months is of the utmost importance to India. Even though they have a fine supporting cast of batsmen in Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and their captain, Sourav Ganguly, the early dismissal of the best batsman in the world is always likely to cause a psychological blockage of sorts. No one will realise this more than Tendulkar himself, forever the realist, however relaxed and at ease he may appear.

He knows, too, that England's bowlers will target him, for they and Nasser Hussain, after his own experiences, are all too aware that the best way to knock a cricketing ship out of action is first to silence the heaviest artillery. It is this battle within a battle which promises to make the coming weeks so absorbing.

In India last winter, Hussain effectively stifled Tendulkar, almost into submission, by using Ashley Giles to bowl his left-arm spinners from over the wicket into the rough outside the right hander's leg stump. This irritated and frustrated the batsman and produced the unedifying spectacle of a batsman of his pedigree having to kick the ball away for over after over. This was as rotten a way to play cricket as Douglas Jardine's Bodyline, but, like Bodyline, it was within the Laws as they then stood.

There is more than a touch of Jardine in Hussain, and it would not be in the least surprising if he uses Giles in a similar fashion against Tendulkar now. With the world's administrators gathered in England for the annual July meeting of the ICC, they will be able to see for themselves the harmful and discordant nature of these tactics and, with any luck, they may be inspired to legislate against them.

If Tendulkar flourishes, India are unlikely to be short of runs. Their main problem is likely to be an inability to bowl England out twice for low enough scores, the essential requirement for victory. England's batsmen are playing high-class spin much better than they did a few years ago. In the last two years they have tamed Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed in Pakistan, Muttiah Muralitharan at home and away and by the end of last winter's tour to India they were well on their way to overcoming the wiles of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh.

In the series against Sri Lanka which has just ended, England's three left-handers, Marcus Trescothick, Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe, made life uncommonly difficult for Muralitharan in the last two Tests. Harbhajan will have to watch out now, for these three are full of confidence and know exactly what has to be done against off-spin. In their present form it will not be surprising if they dominate Kumble too.This will be another fascinating aspect of the Test series.

The retirement of Javagal Srinath, who has been the mainstay of India's fast bowling for the last ten years, will leave a nasty hole.They have some lively newcomers such as Tinu Yohannan and Ashish Nehra, but they will miss Srinath's experience both as a bowler and as a guide and counsellor.

If England consistently get away to the sort of punishing start that Trescothick and Michael Vaughan managed in the recent Test at Old Trafford, the spinners will find themselves being brought on to try and stop the torrent of runs rather than attack apprehensive batsmen. This will make life much harder for them.

Hussain's side should win the triangular one-day tournament which starts on Thursday, and then go on to beat India in the Test series. This would mean an excellent summer for them even if the winter's tour to Australia, which is followed by the World Cup in South Africa in February and March, will almost certainly put this summer's successes into a more realistic perspective. Nonetheless, no side can do more than beat the opposition it has in front of them and England should at least take this modest step.