Having clinched the five-match series already, India would have arrived at the nippy Dharamsala buoyed by the warmth of finally having something to hit back at critics with. Following an abysmal 2012 which saw the team plunge to never-before lows, the New Year didn’t begin well for Team India as they lost the three-match One-Day International (ODI) series to arch-rivals Pakistan.
The Englishmen then picked up from where they left the country for a Christmas break, following a historic Test series triumph on India’s rank turners. In a high-scoring match played on an archetypal placid Rajkot track, England won the first of the five ODIs by nine runs.
