India loom large as England brace for trial by spin

In the aftermath of England's humbling defeat in the second Test against Bangladesh, it is fair to say that the bookmakers are giving them a snowball's chance in Gujarat of emulating their stunning achievement of four years ago, and pulling off another series win in India.

To take only the most extreme ends of the market, Bet365 are currently offering odds of 250/1 for England to wrap up a 5-0 series win, which gets underway at Rajkot next week - for India to achieve the same feat, however, they are offering a meagre 10/3, which is roughly the same as you might be offered to predict Alastair Cook (three centuries at 80.28 last time out) to be England's top run-scorer.

That said, England tend to relish being underdogs, and so there's surely a case for flinging a fiver at the outright series win, which is currently priced at 11/1. India, by contrast, are almost unbackably strong favourites at 2/17.

The identity of the individual stars is harder to pinpoint, particularly the market for leading England bowler. Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes are 4/1, which is fair enough, although who knows how ropey things may get as the series progresses and India's batsmen start to stack up the runs.

As a long shot, how about backing Joe Root's offspin at 66/1 to be England's best weapon? There is a precedent for that as well - way back on England's tour of India in 1992-93, when Graeme Hick was England's leading run-scorer, wicket-taker and catch-taker in a 3-0 series whitewash.