Tendulkar warms to the task

England's cricketers usually make quite a lot of noise about the need to acclimatise to the heat and humidity of far away places. So you had to feel sorry for India's touring team, which celebrated its arrival here with the traditional social encounter against Indian Gym- khana in west London yesterday.

The tour manager, Sandip Patil, described the game as a "good warm-up", but warm-up was very much not the operative word. An icy wind sliced across Heathrow and numbed the fingers of a team that, since its ignominious departure from the World Cup in Calcutta last month, has played two one- day tournaments in Asia. Calcutta, Singapore, Sharjah, Osterley - the roll call of exotic cricket venues never seems to end.

India gave some of their players a chance to put in some serious autographing. Navjot Sidhu signed programmes, bats, books and old bits of tissue paper with his fingers stuffed up his sleeves, while the lucky recipients of his signature cried: "Look! Kumble!" Mohammad Azharuddin was busy having physio in the pavilion, and Srinath and Manjrekar were also rested.

Batting first, India were not looking too pretty at 65 for 4, but Tendulkar, captain for the day, scored 70 without breaking sweat, or taking off any of his jumpers. In the end he was caught and bowled by a maths teacher called Davinder Rehncy in what will, for sure, be a dining out moment for years to come. "He'd just smashed me for six," Rehncy said. "And then he hit a slower ball straight up in the air. I thought about Courtney Browne dropping Tendulkar off one of those in the World Cup, but luckily I held it. He was amazing, actually. I was so nervous. You're bowling at Test batsmen and then you bowl at him, and it's another level."

India were all out for 184, not exactly an imposing total, but more than enough. Kunal Hazare, the 16-year-old grandson of a former Test captain, picked up 3 for 20 in eight overs of slow left arm, but the tourists' bowling always looked a bit sharp for the home side. The Gymkhana lost wickets steadily as they tottered to 88 all out.

Still, the result was hardly the point. It is no longer the case that cricketers need to get cobwebs out of their system: they never stop playing long enough. But the game did provide them with a quick reminder of what it means to bat on slow, seaming English wickets. But no one was injured and the crowd was happy - it was also about the same size as the one at most county matches, only more boisterous. At the end someone even started banging a drum, and what with the air full of tandoori smells they could almost have been at home. Apart from the frost, that is.

ONE-DAY FRIENDLY (Osterley) India 184 (39.5 overs; S R Tendulkar 70). Indian Gymkhana 88. India won by 96 runs.