Steve Waugh said yesterday that England can win in India this winter. He surely wouldn't make the same forecast today. England are preparing to climb one of Test cricket's north faces with a bizarre squad made up of a very decent top six - Trescothick, Vaughan, Butcher, Hussain, Thorpe and Ramprakash - and a bunch of jokers, chokers, greenhorns, walking wounded and men who have been right out of form.

The fast bowling consists of Andy Caddick, a hot-and-cold performer who on last winter's evidence is just a stock bowler on the subcontinent; Craig White, whose slingy reverse swing proved handy in Pakistan, less so in Sri Lanka and negligible in England this summer; plus a couple of novices - Matthew Hoggard, who did well in Pakistan but only in meaningless tour matches played on greentops, and James Ormond, whose Test debut at The Oval was no more than decent. If VVS Laxman can score 281 against McGrath, Gillespie and Warne, he should be aiming for at least 400 against this lot.

Granted, Darren Gough was unavailable, but there has been no attempt to replace him with a cutting edge. A line-up of Caddick, Alex Tudor, Martin Bicknell and either Steve Harmison or Steve Kirby would have had far more chance of taking 20 wickets on a flat pitch.

The slow bowling is more promising - if Ashley Giles is fit. He and Robert Croft formed a successful partnership in Sri Lanka, but then the Sri Lankans don't play spin with the mastery of Tendulkar and Dravid. Richard Dawson is an exciting prospect and a bold choice, but after the way the management treated Jason Brown last winter, he shouldn't expect too many Tests.

Alec Stewart and Gough were bound to leave big holes in the team. But the selectors have allowed that to get to them, instead of calmly reaching for Plan B. Duncan Fletcher says they will continue to pick the strongest team available for any series, yet they have already failed to do so, ignoring Stewart's fantastic record in New Zealand in favour of making a political point.

Stewart's winter off - richly deserved and long overdue - makes it harder to balance the side, but the selectors have not even tried. They have picked seven men who can go in the top six, all specialist batsmen, including the thoroughly unconvincing Usman Afzaal ahead of the much more impressive Owais Shah; and as many as nine men to fight over the bottom five positions. They have made arrangements for Delhi belly among the bowlers and the wicketkeepers, but not among the batters, who are the team's only strong suit(apart from Hussain's captaincy). If, say, Thorpe and his old mate Ramps go out for a dodgy meal together the night before a Test, Craig White will wake up as England's No. 6. Or even No. 5.

The situation cried out for an eighth batsman who could also fill in as a 10-overs-a-day fifth bowler - either Andy Flintoff or Ben Hollioake. Yes, their county stats are poor, but so were Marcus Trescothick's. As it is, England are stuck with only two possible shapes to their team: six batsmen, White at seven, keeper at eight, and only three specialist bowlers - either a spinner and two quicks, or two spinners and one quick.

If they opt for two spinners, as must be likely at Ahmedabad and Bangalore, the third seamer will be either Trescothick or Butcher. Get working on those little swingers, boys.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden.com.

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