Wednesday, January 2, 2002 England were unlucky against India. Despite losing the first Test they had the upper hand for the rest of the series. That is some achievement in India. I consider England's tour to have been a success and it is a series that they could have won.

Much of the credit for that success goes to Nasser Hussain. He has been heavily criticised for his captaincy but I do not agree. The first step towards winning a game is making sure that you do not lose it. Nasser knew that his bowling attack was not capable of blasting India out twice so he opted for a strategy that helped keep the runs down and forced the Indian batsmen to take risks. If England's bowlers had bowled a conventional line on those wickets they would have been murdered.

Some people have called this approach negative, and suggested that it is a sinister development in Test cricket. First, there is nothing new in it. Many teams have tried these tactics in the past. England bowled the same way against Pakistan in 2000-01, and I remember India bowling the same way at us in Bangalore in 1983-84. Sunil Gavaskar, one of England's most outspoken critics, was playing in that game.

Mostly, this is a pragmatic approach to staying in the game, especially when the batsmen are likely to overwhelm the bowlers, as was the case with England. The time you can call this tactic negative is when high-quality bowlers resort to it. If Warne, Murali, or Saqlain bowled around the wicket, outside leg stump, over after over, I would call that negative.

Yes, it was not cricket for purists but Nasser was playing to his strengths, playing for survival. All credit to him for having the sense and the courage to do that.

I am less impressed with the news that he plans to step down from the captaincy after the 2003 World Cup. The captaincy is an honour and it is wrong to make such premature announcements. When a senior player steps down from the captaincy it usually means that he no longer wants to play at international level. Is that what Nasser is really saying?

When he is having such a huge influence on the revival of English cricket he should not be talking about forcing a change that might not be beneficial. If the real problem is that the pressure of the top job is getting too much for him, he should leave now.

Javed Miandad, Pakistan's greatest runmaker and latterly their coach, was talking to Kamran Abbasi.

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