If England get the go-ahead, the team will fly down to the city only on Monday, leaving themselves with a little over two days to get match ready. And that, clearly was a cause of concern for coach Peter Moores, who felt that practice had been “compromised”.

“The practice has been compromised quite a lot, we are practising in the wrong country (Abu Dhabi) but the lads are in good spirits,” Moores was quoted as saying by the BBC. “It is more of a mental shift we need now — we have been playing one-day cricket for a long time and we need to get ready for Test cricket, and the disciplines of the longer form of the game. We cannot use the compromise to practice as an excuse for poor performance,” he said.

Meanwhile, the England coach also said there was a willingness in the team to return to India, despite the recent terror strikes in Mumbai. “There’s a general will within the team to go and play these Test matches,” Moores said. “Because, one, people will be representing their country but also in the situation we find ourselves after what happened in Mumbai. There’s a strong feeling that we want to go and play these Tests.”

‘To each his own’

However, he said it wasn’t binding on anyone and the players were free to decide for themselves. “But everyone will have different opinions and if someone doesn’t want to go we will respect that. Hopefully we can take our full-strength side there, compete, win the series and have a good Christmas,” he added.