Graphic: England's all round recipe for success

At the kind of ungodly hour when Ian Botham used to think about going to bed, his successors will be driven from the England team hotel tomorrow hoping that a switch from malaise into prime form really is as straightforward as Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores believe. The head coach backed up the captain yesterday, denying a legacy of shell shock from the Stanford experience as he prepared for the toughest assignment of his tenure to date.

Even with better preparation the challenge would be tough, but the embarrassing loss to the Mumbai second string in the final warm-up on Tuesday suggested that England are some way from being ready for the seven-match series. The idea that the Stanford Super Series was part of the warm-up for this trip has been exposed for the spin that it always was and the lack of match practice here means that players must rely on their wits, instinct and experience.

The squad has talked about the starting times of 9am (3.30 GMT) for those matches not under floodlights (8.30am in Guwahati), such as the first in the series at Rajkot. They will leave for the ground at 6.45am, when dawn will just have broken, and aim to begin their warm-up routines at 7.30. So many one-day matches are determined in the first hour and players have been getting up early during the past week to adjust their body clock.

Moores is unsure whether the ball will dominate for the opening overs. Whether it does or not, India will be weakened by the failure of Ishant Sharma, the fast-medium bowler, to recover from an ankle injury. England's strength has been in the pace department, with Andrew Flintoff and Stephen Harmison adding a cutting edge after the new-ball attack.

Ryan Sidebottom has been ruled out, but Stuart Broad has undergone an injection in his right knee in an attempt to be fit. James Anderson, after 40 successive games, may be dropped if England want to play two spinners.

The final place may come down to a choice between Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright. Pietersen does not appear to rate either as a bowler and Bopara's batting is better suited to the conditions; he can work the ball around and has been practising his aerial strokes, while Wright is more the uncomplicated, straight hitter. Depth of batting is useful as long as it does not lure the top six into thinking that they can be bailed out.

If 9am starts are a new experience, then so is the subtle but fascinating change to the powerplay rules introduced by the ICC at the start of last month. The batting side will be able to decide when to take one of the five-over blocks when only three fielders are allowed outside the fielding circle. Ingenuity of captains will be tested to the full, particularly in the teething stages.

Ideally, for example, England would wait until Pietersen and Flintoff are well set. But games rarely pan out in the middle as conveniently as they do at team meetings. As one option, should they take the powerplay if Ian Bell and Matt Prior are going quickly? And will the bowling side react by turning to their “death” bowlers - Flintoff, again, in England's case - to bowl yorkers knowing that the attack will be weakened for the end of the innings?

The key, as ever, will be to take wickets. To say that England's bowlers have looked more alert than the batsmen is thin praise indeed; the 98 all out against the Mumbai Cricket Association XI on Tuesday was abject in the extreme. “It was a mental rather than an effort thing,” Moores said. “I hope it will be the key for everyone to say ‘hang on, come on' and really start playing. It told us that we are here for real.”

India will need no jolt to bring themselves to life. They are buoyant after beating Australia in the Test series, to the point where media coverage is celebrating with the question of when Mahendra Singh Dhoni's side will become recognised as the best in the world. Yet the team encountered by England will not be the list of illustrious names who cemented the 2-0 win in Nagpur earlier in the week.

The so-called Fab Four of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman are missing and for the likes of Suresh Raina, who made a precocious impression on England as a 19-year-old in 2006, and Rohit Sharma, this is an opportunity to break through. However, Yuvraj Singh, a more familiar name, has been replaced by Virender Sehwag as the vice-captain and is said to be at a crossroads.

India (from): M S Dhoni (captain), V Sehwag, G Gambhir, S K Raina, Yuvraj Singh, R G Sharma, Y K Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, M M Patel, Ishant Sharma, P P Ojha, R P Singh, Virat Kohli, Murali Vijay.

England (from): K P Pietersen (Hampshire, captain), T R Ambrose (Warwickshire), J M Anderson (Lancashire), I R Bell (Warwickshire), R S Bopara (Essex), S C J Broad (Nottinghamshire), P D Collingwood (Durham), A N Cook (Essex), A Flintoff (Lancashire), S J Harmison (Durham), S R Patel (Nottinghamshire), M J Prior (Sussex), O A Shah (Middlesex), G P Swann (Nottinghamshire), L J Wright (Sussex).

Television: Tomorrow: Sky Sports 1 (3.30am).

Radio: 5 live Sports Extra (from 3.20am).

Modi issues IPL warning

Lalit Modi, the chairman of the Indian Premier League, has warned Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff to commit to the lucrative Twenty20 event. “Are the franchise owners happy for Kevin Pietersen to play a handful of matches and then go away?” Modi said. “They need to be there for 15 or 16 matches. If you ask, 'Is that practical?' I don't think it is currently.”