After suffering a first defeat by Bangladesh and the horror show of a 10-wicket collapse inside a session that brought it about England went into the first day of their five-Test series with India as a team who could ill-afford any more dents to their confidence in the opening exchanges. With no warm-up games scheduled – a mistake unlikely to be repeated – only net practice and team talks came before the most daunting of away series. They needed a few things to go their way in Rajkot to establish an early foothold.
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