As the England team arrive in Kanpur they will have done so in the knowledge that they need to seriously raise their game in order to live with this Indian team that have surely now become the best all round team in World cricket.  Having been stuffed out of sight in the first game, England at least made a marked improvement during the second One Dayer at Indore where we only lost by 70!! 

There are a number of issues following the two defeats surrounding selection and batting order that need a good looking at.  We are at the moment stacking the team with batsmen, Stuart Broad coming in at number nine signifies what a strong batting unit it is.  With this in mind we should be taking more chances at the top of the order in the first 15 overs, as traditionally in India it is a lot harder to score in the middle of the innings when the spinners come on and the ball is soft and turning than at the start of the innings.  I feel it is so important to start our innings with very positive intent and try and get them on the back foot rather than just letting them bowl at us. 

I think we also need to play our main spinner, Graeme Swann rather than leave the bulk of the spinning to Samit Patel, who while looking a star of the future to me, is very inexperienced at this level, and expecting him to bowl ten overs at the best players of spin of the world, I feel is asking too much of a young lad.

In an ideal world, let's hope KP wins the toss on Thursday morning, we bat, get off to a flying start, build steadily through the middle period, save our batting power play hopefully for when KP and Fred are in full flow, as happened the other day, and end up with about 320!!  Then at least we will have the Indians under pressure and it is a whole different ball game when it is the other team under pressure.