Wednesday, October 24, 2001 If England don't go to India, it will be a shame. But if they do go, it could be a humiliation. On their last trip to India, in 1992-93, England dropped David Gower and Jack Russell -- and lost 3-0. This time Darren Gough and Alec Stewart have dropped themselves and they may not be the only ones. Another whitewash looks possible. But England have had No Hopers plastered all over their luggage before, only to upset the odds and the opposition. Here are five tours that looked in advance like rotten eggs, but came up smelling of roses.

1973-74 West Indies 1 England 1
Never one for melodrama Wisden Cricketers' Almanack reported that this result was "a surprise, a pleasant one". Rough translation: "Cricket, eh? Bloody hell!" West Indies had won 2-0 in England a few months earlier, and Garry Sobers, who smashed 150 not out in the final game of that series, was hoping to exit Test cricket with some more fireworks. And when West Indies won the first Test by seven wickets, everyone knew what was coming. Or so they thought. Inspired by Dennis Amiss, who hit 262 not out in the next match, England hung on for three draws in a row, and then pinched the fifth and final Test by 26 runs. Geoff Boycott hit 99 and 112, while Tony Greig, mainly bowling offspin, took 13 for 156. Sobers finished his career with just three wickets and scores of 0 and 20. And England didn't win another Test in the Caribbean for 16 years.

1976-77 India 1 England 3
England had spent much of 1976 regretting Greig's promise to make the touring West Indies grovel. Only one side was made to sweat that blistering summer -- West Indies won 3-0 -- and England were soon trooping off to a country where they hadn't won for 43 years. India was even hotter too. It didn't look good. But Greig redeemed himself with a virtuoso performance: he scored 103 in the win at Calcutta, turned siege mentality into a dirty word, and wowed the crowds by playing the clown. India loved him, and England duly won the first three Tests by an innings, ten wickets and 200 runs.

1989-90 West Indies 2 England 1
England had lost 14 of their previous 15 Tests against West Indies, and when chairman of selectors Ted Dexter promised to "fight fire with fire" with an attack consisting of a loose cannon (Devon Malcolm), two not very frightening seamers (Angus Fraser and David Capel), and a man with no neck (Gladstone Small), the world sniggered. But England shut them up by sensationally winning the first Test, and were all set for a 2-0 lead with two to play when Graham Gooch broke his finger, the Trinidad skies burst open, and West Indies slowed the over-rate to eight an hour. It was all too much to take. A maniacal Curtly Ambrose turned a draw into a West Indies win as the sun set on the final evening of the fourth Test at Bridgetown, and a demoralised and exhausted England were served up for slaughter in the final match. "The essential weakness of any statistical record," said the Almanack, "is that it can reflect neither circumstance nor injustice." Losers have never come home so triumphant.

2000-01 Pakistan 0 England 1
Wasim Akram could barely hide his disgust. "I think England stands no chance in Pakistan and we can easily beat them," he crowed. At the time, the premature gloating looked justified. England hadn't won a Test in Pakistan for 39 years, and hadn't even bothered playing one there since Mike Gatting and Shakoor Rana wagged fingers in 1987-88. But they came with a game plan, and executed it to perfection: Graham Thorpe got so excited about his new-found role of grinder-in-chief that by the time he reached his century in the first Test at Lahore, he had hit just one boundary. In consecutive first innings England racked up 480 for 9, 342 and 388 -- and waited for Pakistan to implode. They obliged on the last day of the series, and left England with a tense runchase that finished in near darkness after Moin Khan's time-wasting tactics. No side had ever beaten Pakistan at Karachi. And few sides had ever been given as little chance as England.

2001-02 Zimbabwe 0 England 5
The very word ("Zimbabwe") still brought out the shivers in those who remembered England's flippin'-murdered-`em tour of 1996-97. This time there were real murders going on, and President Robert Mugabe's refusal to condemn the looting of farms led some critics to call for the abandonment of the tour. England hadn't even chosen a full-strength team for this one-day series: their first XI had just lost six out of six limited-overs matches at home, and the emphasis was on building for the 2003 World Cup. Banana skins were everywhere. But Nasser's babes-in-arms ensured there were no slip-ups, and England discovered some unlikely heroes. Jeremy Snape and Paul Collingwood emerged from the nether regions of county cricket, and Matthew Hoggard emerged as a new-ball challenger for Darren Gough and Andy Caddick. Never again would England wince at the mention of chicken farmers.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com. His English Angle appears on Wednesdays.

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