The England cricket team arrived in India yesterday to a heroes’ welcome and a massive security operation after resuming their tour only nine days after the series of terrorist attacks on Mumbai finally ended.

India remains deeply unnerved by the atrocities, which claimed 171 lives, but for England’s show of solidarity the praise was universal. New Delhi Television summed up the mood of defiance that the move engendered when it called England’s decision “a huge win for cricket over terror”.

The sentiment was echoed on the streets of Mumbai after the team touched down in Madras (Chennai). “This England team, it’s very good,” Shankar Vemula, 40, a driver, said – a verdict surely not based on the touring side’s form in 5-0 one-day series defeat against India that was curtailed last month by the terrorists’ actions.

“Our politicians, they can’t handle these terrorists, but England are not scared,” Vemula added.

There was unprecedented security for Kevin Pietersen, the England captain, and his team as they arrived at Madras airport, with armed commandos and policemen positioned at various vantage points. “We have deployed over 5,000 security personnel drawn from police and commando units,” said P. Balasubramaniam, the city’s joint commissioner of police. “We have positioned 300 commandos at the hotel and 1,000 policemen around it. These men will be on the job till the teams leave the city.”

For England to win anything in India is going to be tough, given the home side’s present form even if they have won over the Indian public. Who knows, it may just auger well for the two Test matches to come, the first of which begins at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Madras on Thursday. England’s squad, starved of practice time and hugely distracted in the past week, need all the help they can get.

Few of the millions of cricket-mad Indians would have criticised the players, who have been training in Abu Dhabi, for staying away. Nevertheless, they had been hanging on England’s decision. India’s rolling news channels have covered little else but the investigation into the Mumbai attacks in recent days, but they did make time for regular updates on the oscillating moods of Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison, the England players who appeared to have the most serious reservations about retuning to the sub-continent.

Before boarding his flight from Abu Dhabi yesterday Flintoff said: “Unity has played a major part. We didn’t want to get in the position where the team was split up.

“Even though we got beat in the one-day series, the spirit in the camp was really good and that’s something we don’t want to lose. The team are very keen to go and play cricket. This may be one of the things that brings the team tighter.”

Flintoff confirmed that the players had not been forced into going or rushed into making a decision and that he had had doubts even during the team meeting on Sunday night but had taken the advantage of a break in the security presentation to ring home and discuss it with his family.

That Flintoff yesterday emphasised that the decision to play on had been unanimous and that a first-choice squad had travelled was warmly appreciated, all the more so since India’s cricketing masses are well aware of the precedents in this type of situation. Australia’s decision to forfeit games staged in Sri Lanka in the 1996 World Cup after blasts in Colombo lingers fresh in the memory, especially since India are hoping to host the same tournament in 2011.

More recently, India’s cricketing authorities have been fearful of emulating Pakistan, effectively a no-go zone in world cricket because of the security situation there.

However, despite the morale boost provided by England, a bleak pragmatism still stalked the sport in India yesterday. There were mutterings by a tiny minority, including Rashid Latif, the former Pakistan captain, that England’s players were somehow swayed by India’s status as cricket’s financial powerhouse.

Meanwhile, in Madras, the Indian team practised at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium behind a huge security cordon with the precautions only likely to increase. The army and police have been handed the task of providing England with a “presidential standard” of security. Reg Dickason, the ECB security adviser, travelled north to Mohali, venue of the second Test, yesterday to assess the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, which is only a few hours’ drive from Pakistan.