Team India gear up for series whitewash

England travel to Eden Gardens on Tuesday, the vast stadium in Kolkata best described as cricket's answer to the Coliseum, where they face a rampant India side in the fifth and final game of their one day series. India won the first four matches in comprehensive style, and look well on their way to securing a series whitewash. If England are to prevent this humiliation they must dig deeper than ever, not only battling against the opposite eleven, but also against the vast crowd who will be willing them to fail.
Having come nowhere near beating the Indians in the four matches thus far, the England players who seem to running out of ideas, will have one final crack at the world champions, in an effort to end the tour with a victory to their name.
India start the match as favourites to win, and can be backed to do so at best odds of 4/7 (bet £7 to make £4 profit) with Stan James. England, on the other hand, can be backed at 6/4 with Ladbrokes.

Before arriving in India last month England had enjoyed an almost perfect year: they had retained the ashes in Australia, beaten Sri Lanka and India at home in successive test series, and overtaken India at the top of the world test-match rankings. England had even beaten India in their one day series at home – a format of the game that England have not excelled at historically. When Alastair Cook's side flew to the subcontinent, therefore, they were a group brimming with confidence and optimism. Four consecutive defeats at the hands of MS Dhoni's team, however, have demonstrated in uncomfortably blunt terms that England still have a great many improvements to make.

England have let themselves down in all areas of the game, but first and foremost they have underperformed drastically with the bat. Alastair Cook's team have posted a total of more than 250 runs only once in their four matches so far, looking consistently ordinary in the face of an Indian attack that doesn't even include their top bowlers (Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan are sidelined through injury). England must improve on Tuesday if they are to salvage anything from this series, and Andy Flower will look to his top batsmen in particular to raise their game.