"You can call it a practice match if you like, but I think it is ideal," pronounced Duncan Fletcher at the end of the drawn two-day match against the MCA President's XI. It was a game of glitter for the batsmen and gruel for the bowlers, but Fletcher saw positives for everyone. "Our bowlers yesterday realised that wickets out here are not easy, they're not like English wickets where you can just put a ball in a zone and something happens. You've got to work hard, you've got to be disciplined and they realise now what's expected of them for the remainder of the tour.

"If people remember the last two practice matches we had in Sri Lanka, bowlers of the calibre of Gough and Caddick struggled a bit and this was a flatter wicket [than those]. The guys are ring-rusty, they haven't bowled for some time … but to stick at it like they did was a great performance."

But it was the batting, and particularly Craig White's 79 not out, with five walloping sixes and seven fours, that brought a smile to Fletcher's normally impassive face - though he admitted that it might not be as easy to hit over the top when Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh are turning the screw.

"Half an hour batting out there is like batting for an hour and a half in the nets. Our batters got a really good knock. Craig is a good batter, he plays well against the spinners. It was impressive to see him like that, having not played much cricket lately."

Fletcher also praised Marcus Trescothick's performance, especially as he, and Jimmy Ormond, had felt sick last night - whacked out by the heat and the humidity.

So England survived their first date in an Indian sauna, despite the sponsors being over eager and presenting them with a runners-up prize as if the game had been a one-innings match. Their next challenge is to work out what to do with the giant water filters presented to Richard Dawson and Nasser Hussain for the best English batting and bowling performances. They have 12 hours to make their minds up before they fly to Hyderabad for the second warm-up game.

Tanya Aldred, our assistant editor, is covering the whole England tour of India for Wisden.com.

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