To be bowled out for 98 by what is effectively a Mumbai 2nd XI is hardly ideal preparation three days before the start of a seven-match one-day series against a side brimming with confidence less than a week after toppling the best side in the world. Kevin Pietersen dismissed this result as irrelevant. He had no other choice.

The atmosphere in Rajkot on Friday will be vastly different to the rather ghostly feel about the Brabourne Stadium, where the crowd could be measured in three figures and the loudest sound - at least when the home side were not appealing in ever-excited confidence - was that of the panel beaters banging away against metal in a stand.

So Pietersen, while not an impartial witness, does have a point. Ian Bell looked anything but switched on when he attempted to cut lazily in the first over. That was out of character and set a distracted tone. Paul Collingwood tried to hit out of trouble, barely accustomed to the pace of the pitch; Samit Patel and Ravi Bopara slashed at wide ones.

It really was poor. Yes, the ball seamed a little and swung, but nobody knuckled down until Graeme Swann hung around at the end on a damage limitation exercise. England were simply off the pace, if that is not a silly way to put it against a bowling attack described by Pietersen as "sixty mile-an-hour dibbly-dobbers."

The trouble is that however focused the side on Friday morning it will still enter the series with only two one-day games behind them, a convincing win on Sunday followed by the shambles of today. Pietersen was asked whether he thought England could do with an extra warm-up game. "Who knows, who knows?" came the reply. It sounded like a "yes".

Any momentum and some of the confidence from the 4-0 win against South Africa at the back end of last season must have dissipated after the Stanford experience and a mixed few days in Bombay. Despite that, Pietersen sounded optimistic, and he was right when he said that the latest game will be forgotten if England take the series.

But can they? It takes an exceptional talent to be able to switch onto his best form at the push of a button. While Owais Shah will be back for Friday having been rested here (and what a good player he looked in his absence), relative newcomers such as Patel, Bopara and Luke Wright barely have a run to their name. A big test of their nerve awaits. Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh will be licking their lips in anticipation.