A tour to the Old Blighty always triggers interest nonpareil to Indian fans for a number of reasons, foremost being the climatic conditions from June to September that makes the local Dukes ball behave in peculiar ways in the air and off the surface.

Raised in such conditions in the English County Championships, the home team's seamers and fast bowlers are adept at deploying the red cherry to good use and to their advantage.

Needless to say India's batters have been found wanting on most tours to England, accustomed as they are playing in generally warm weather in India and hence demanded to face deliveries that often stays straight in the air and off the pitch. With better preparation through ingenious ways, India's batters have in recent times, found ways - technically - to counter the Dukes ball menace, but nine wins in 67 Tests in England in 93 years mirrors its dismal track record in England.

India did not win a single Test in England for almost four decades before the polio-affected leg-spinner, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar hoodwinked the England batters with a spell of 6 for 38 in the second innings of 'The Oval' Test in 1971. That magic spell of the series paved the way for the Ajit Wadekar led team to win its first Test in England, and also the series.

Fifteen years after the famous Oval win, India won an away series 2-0 in 1986; its best on nineteen tours since 1932 when Col. C. K. Nayudu's team made its Test debut at the Lord's Cricket Ground. This Test gained reputation for the excellent fast and seam bowling by Mahomed Nissar and Amar Singh Ladha, but India went down by 158 runs.

Even Australia, in olden times, regarded a tour to England as a "correction course" series, assessing a batter on his showing in England, in particular at Lord's where people with a sharp and keen eye notice a slope extending from the Pavillion End to the Nursery End. Australia has won 53 matches of the Ashes Test series in England and the home team has won 55 - in 176 contests.

In a little over a week's time India will begin its 20th series in England, with the opening salvos set to be fired at the Headingley, Leeds - where low clouds encourage the expert manipulator of the seam to obtain appreciable movement in the air and off the pitch. It may seem surprising, but it was at this venue India beat England by an innings and 46 runs in the 2002 Test series.

With high clouds not offering much to the home team's bowlers India made 628 for 8 wickets with three figure knocks by Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S.Laxman and with spinners Anil Kumble and Harbhahan Singh taking 11 wickets after breakthroughs by Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar.

India will be led by a rookie captain in Shubman Gill. And it will be a first series in a long time, India will take on the England bowlers without out Virat Kohli (29 innings and 976 runs) and to an extent Rohit Sharma whose last innings there was a 127 at the Oval in September 2021. Sharma has an aggregate of 402 runs in England with an average of 44.67.

The Indian selectors with Ajit Agarkar in the chair - he scored a century in the second innings of the Lord's Test in 2002 - have picked a team bringing in left hander Sai Sudharsan and Karun Nair, on the basis of their performance in domestic cricket. The committee has also retained Abhimanyu Easwaran who warmed the bench during the entire five -Test series in Australia.

Agarkar said at the team selection press conference that Gill and Head Coach Gautam Gambhir will decide the batting order; they have to take a call on who opens with left hander Yashasvi Jaiswal who himself will be seen for the first time in action in England.

India's opening pair's have hardly met with great success in England - the best was in 1936 when Vijay Merchant and S Mushtaq Ali scored 584 as a pair. They are followed by Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan who made 453 in the 1979 series. The third best is from KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma who made 421 in the 2021 series.

There are only eight instances of 100 plus partnerships for the first wicket in England with Gavaskar featuring thrice and with Chauhan twice, Merchant and Mushtaq Ali featuring twice. So Gill will know where India has to get better results - from the top of the order. There have been 18 fifty runs plus starts from.50 to 97.

It’s ditto for the second wicket partnerships - 8 century plus and 17 fifty plus partnerships. It’s seven centuries plus partnerships for the third wicket, eleven for the fourth, six for the fifth, four for the sixth and seventh and once for the tenth - 111 between Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami at Trent Bridge in 2014.

Where India has to find answers is from the opening, second and third wicket pairs --Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar made 707 on the 2002 tour and Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara made 488 in 2014, as third wicket pairs. India has had good runs from the fourth wicket pairs, but it has to get a lot more from the opening and second wicket pairs.

India's batting will revolve around Jaiswal, Gill, Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and the comeback man Nair. The head coach said at the departure press conference that Nair will get enough opportunities. The tour selectors have the option to pick Sudharsan and Easwaran. The top five will be critical as they have the capacity - once they get their eye in - to call the shots.

Gill also has the option to look at Dhruv Jurel (wicketkeeper) as a pure batter and also to look at Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur from the point of boosting the lower order. But the top order must weigh in to put pressure on the home team to be led by Ben Stokes.

Gill has to get runs and lead by example. The selectors have invested in the 25 year old, not looking at the England tour alone but for the long term future. Once he gets cracking, the better it will be for the right hander and thereby his team.

With new ball operators Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad (130 wickets together in 15 Tests against India in England) out of the way, the Indian batters can heave a sigh of relief, and with pitches likely to be batter friendly (according to reports from England) Gill and company have a chance to score big for their bowlers to be a little more aggressive. Jasprit Bumrah and company will need plenty of cushion to work with their ways.