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England Arrive in India as Tour Dates are Announced
The England squad flew into Mubai today and were greeted with a warm and homely reception, the ECB had announced the tour itinerary hours before and held a press conference at the airport for the media. The players stepped off the plane and certain ones were escorted through the terminals to a seperate function room to discuss the tour, the players who faced the press were Ashley Giles and Michael Vaughan, Duncan Fletcher also joined them. The squad remained the same as it was for the Pakistan tour but players may be flown home or drafted in at a later date.
James Anderson and Paul Collingwood arrive:
As Giles, Vaughan and Fletcher entered the clicks and flashes illuminated the small, stuffy room. There were various newspaper journalists there and some fro magazines such as Spin. The floor was opened up and the questions came thick and fast, here are just a few that were asked;
The Sun: Michael, after such a dissapointing tour of Pakistan is the future much brighter for the upcomming tour of India?
MV: Well i hope so, our performances were too inconsistant and i think that was due to changing pitches and drastic temperature and humidity changes, here in India we will be using just one ground for all matches and the temerature is much more stable.
The Mirror: Duncan, how are the players going to prepare for the matches this time round differently to last time in Pakistan?
DF: The main thing that we will be doing differently is allowing the players out of the hotel and giving them some leisure time, in Pakistan, due to security circumstances, we werent allowed to do that, i thik that this is really going to help our game because it allows us to relax and concentrate on other things, too much cricket can be bad if your thinking about it all the time.
and Finally;
The Times: Ashley, you were instrumental in masterminding Englands sucess in Pakistan a few years back but you werent as effective this time round, will you be tweaking anything for the India tour?
AG: No, not at all, i think i bowled well in Pakistan, i did everything right it was just luck that i didnt have, me and Shaun [Udal] could have taken far more wickets on another day, it just so happened that chances went down or they didnt carry, im sure our luck will change, Indian picthes are much more prone to spin anyway sp we will see how it goes.
Here is the tour itinerary;
Test Series:
1st Test - Mumbai
2nd Test - Mumbai
3rd Test - Mumbai
ODI Series
1st ODI - Mumbai
2nd ODI - Mumbai
3rd ODI - Mumbai
4th ODI - Mumbai
5th ODI - Mumbai
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