by Tanya Aldred in Bangalore
Tuesday, December 18, 2001

It will be Imodium city tomorrow morning as sicknote England prepare for the final encounter of their Indian Test tour. Nasser Hussain, so ill on Sunday night that he had to have an injection because he was unable to keep tablets down, will lead his team out in an attempt to level the series 1-1 - that is if he can find 11 fit men. Preferably the same 11 of whom Hussain said "they can't play any better" after England had the better of the draw at Ahmedabad, though Richard Dawson, Matthew Hoggard and Mark Ramprakash have all been suffering too.

But if England are tired they're nearly home, if they were depressed they've now got a chance to draw the series, if they were hot and bothered they're now in the cooler greener climes of metropolitan Bangalore, where trees divide the dual carriageways, you're allowed to buy a beer and it even rained yesterday evening. Christmas trees covered in lights and cotton wool adorn the Doric-columned post-office building; there are advertisements for Christmas celebrations around the city. And when England practised it felt like an overcast afternoon at The Oval. Even the relaid pitch looked friendly - yellowing with green patches round the edge, and a few cracks, though the groundsman promised they wouldn't get any worse.

The Chinnaswamy immediately feels like more of a stadium than Ahmedabad, even though it holds fewer people. Two tiers of seating and covered stands give it more presence, like an amphitheatre. Especially when the floodlights come on, as they did at ten to four this afternoon. Nets, hanging like paperchains, hover 100 feet up over the cheaper concrete terraces, and will drop if the crowd get vicious and start throwing cans. A sniffer dog and a man with a metal detector strolled around the ground but you couldn't help thinking they would be surprised if they found a ring-pull. Security has been the great white elephant of the tour.

For the first time in the Test series, the practice nets were actually on the ground itself, packaged away in the far corner. Exercise seemed gentle - no-one had the stomach for a strenuous work-out, neither the sick nor those who were fit enough to go to the Indian-player-of-the-year party last night. (Won by Guess Who.)

Michael Vaughan has the most to play for. Thrown in at the last minute at Ahmedabad because of Graham Thorpe's marital crisis, he made an impressive 31 not out in the second innings despite losing six kilograms of fluid during the Test through this still-mysterious illness.

"It was quite tricky to try and push the scoring against two world-class spinners," Vaughan said today, "but the hour and a half I had against them was a great opportunity and a good chance for me to have a look at them. That 30 might not seem a massive score but hopefully I gained some confidence from that innings."

After missing 14 of the 27 Tests since his debut at Johannesburg two years ago (with a bruised finger, cartilage tear, calf problem and broken wrist) and waking up on the first day of the Ashes series in a hospital bed, he is determined to make this a proper comeback, to secure a spot back where he began, in the treasured top four. He says he has replaced the weight he lost, though hollows remain under his eyes, and he's had a couple of good gym sessions since the game.

"I was disappointed to see Graham go but hopefully this is the start of a long run in the side for myself, injury free. I started my career before Tres (Marcus Trescothick) but he's played seven games more than me."

A statistic any of the thousands of computer whizz-kids around Bangalore would love to turn into an Excel spreadsheet. This is a figures city, the software capital of India, if not the world. In the large Cubbon Park next to the ground thousands of ashoka trees are individually numbered, and courting couples sit neatly arrayed on symmetrical benches. For statistical nirvana all England need to do is knock up 550 and bowl India out for 115. Bingo - batting and bowling records in Bangalore and a series draw. Even the Aussies couldn't manage that.

England (barring illness) 1 Mark Butcher, 2 Marcus Trescothick, 3 Nasser Hussain (capt), 4 Michael Vaughan, 5 Mark Ramprakash, 6 Andrew Flintoff, 7 Craig White, 8 James Foster (wk), 9 Ashley Giles, 10 Richard Dawson, 11 Matthew Hoggard.

Tanya Aldred, assistant editor of Wisden.com, will be reporting from Bangalore along with Dileep Premachandran. Full coverage of the match begins here shortly before the start of play at 9.30am Wednesday local time (4am GMT).

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