Not a bad side overnight

England's cricketers will have fancied their chances of winning the test series in Pakistan after their great victory over Australia this summer and rightly so.

They were never overrawed by their illustrious opponents and despite the very good efforts of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath they deserves to win The Ashes.

But winning a series doesn't guarantee that you will win the next one and it's possible that England were guilty of not playing the situation they were in and playing with the winning formula they knew so well.

The attacking attitude that served them so well in the summer may not have necessarily been the way to go on the subcontinent.

The appraoch to batting in Test cricket is something that former England captain Geoffrey Boycott has always preached. In particualar the idea that batsmen should not give their wicket away.

The recent series in Pakistan seemed to highlight the problem Boycott says is evident in England's batting.

There were a number of occasions were England found themselves in a position which required patience. Particularly the run chase in Multan were England did have a day to score 197 to win the match.

Test Match Special commentator Jonathan Agnew summed it up perfectly.

"It seemed England wanted to finish the game in a rush, and rather than carefully and meticulously knocking off the runs, they went at it far too aggressively."

It became the story of the tour and invariably when a side loses a couple of matches in a row the confidence ebbs away and now England need to re-focus and use their methodical approach.

Sure, injuries don't help but there is some homework that needs to be done before they can say with any confidence that they can beat India.