Wednesday, December 5, 2001 England's first innings was a big disappointment considering the way they played in Asia last year. The lower order lacked fighting spirit and common purpose. That is what made England so successful a year ago. Mohali has been the complete opposite of what I expected.

In fact, England must be kicking themselves. Before the match, they will have fancied their chances. India returned from a disappointing tour of South Africa, and the players were distracted by controversy. The Indian selectors had also made the strange decision to completely replace the pace attack.

England's batsmen, especially the middle and lower order, played badly against the spinners. There are some valid reasons, though. This was England's first big match for a few months, some of the team are inexperienced, and even the senior players are not used to playing Harbhajan and Kumble. From that point of view England can only get better.

The real shame is that England do not seem to have worked out a method to play the spinners. If you want to be successful against a high-class spin bowler you have to read the delivery from the bowler's hand. Brian Lara, who scored so heavily against Muralitharan, said this week that he had received the same advice from Garry Sobers before leaving for Sri Lanka.

For example, when an offspinner bowls the ball that goes away from the right-handed batsman, it is a different delivery from a standard offbreak. The delivery has more loop and the bowler does not work as hard on the ball. You have to push the offbreak from the hand to get more action on the ball. Learning to spot that sort of difference requires homework, practice, and concentration. But it is what you expect from a Test player.

If some of England's batsmen find it impossible to pick deliveries from the hand then they should play for the danger ball, the one that goes away from the batsman. At least, that way, playing with bat and pad close together, it is still possible to smother incoming deliveries. Instead England's batsmen were looking to hit the ball to leg when it was either holding its line or turning slightly away.

England threw away their wickets in that first innings. To be competitive, they need to think and talk more about how they are going to approach India's spinners, and come up with a method. I hope they can adjust their techniques for the remainder of the series - otherwise India will have it easy.

Javed Miandad, Pakistan's greatest run-maker and latterly their coach, was talking to Kamran Abbasi.

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