England set off with spin fear back to haunt them

England leave for Dubai on Thursday before their four-Test tour of India. Four years ago they also went to the United Arab Emirates in advance of a Test tour to India. They don't really want to go to the Middle East now, and many of the squad certainly didn't want to go back then.

To deal with the present first, England are not going straight to India, which would be eminently preferable, because the good, old, all-powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India did not want them there. The Champions League, taking place in South Africa, was originally scheduled to be held in India, and, with the final always to be played next Sunday, the BCCI did not want England's arrival overshadowing that.

In contrast, four years ago, the BCCI desperately wanted England in India as soon as possible. If you recall, and I certainly do because I scarpered as quickly as the team, the terrible Mumbai atrocities had occurred and the one-day leg of England's tour had been hastily abandoned. The trip to Abu Dhabi was arranged as a holding camp while security assurances were sought so that the team could eventually return for the two Tests that were moved from Mumbai and Ahmedabad to Chennai and Mohali. But many didn't want to go to Abu Dhabi and certainly not to India. Two obvious and initial refuseniks were Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison. Others, such as Jimmy Anderson, Ian Bell, Matt Prior, Alastair Cook and Graeme Swann, were wavering.

But with the captain, a fellow named Kevin Pietersen, eager that the trip went ahead (Indian Premier League anyone?), it did so with a full complement of players and a "ring of steel" to protect them. The then prime minister, Gordon Brown, described the decision to return as "brave and courageous".

Quite what the current prime minister makes of recent events involving the England team is unknown, but at least it has now been confirmed that Pietersen will make the tour, even if he may not be present for the Dubai warm-up.

His participation in the latter stages of the Champions League (which has a window in the future tours programme, remember) would always have prevented that, and, while there has been a rumpus recently with Shane Watson being recalled from that tournament by Cricket Australia, that was from the Sydney Sixers team rather an IPL franchise. It is a very different thing.

No matter. The facilities at Dubai's Global Cricket Academy, where England will practise next week, will be good - there are different net surfaces made from soil imported from Pakistan, England and Australia - but the real preparation will not begin until the team reaches India a week on Monday. They will play one four-day and two three-day matches before the first Test in Ahmedabad on November 15. And there is much work to do. England's cricketers spend a lot more time in India, but not much time is spent playing longer-form cricket.

For instance Nick Compton, who is likely to open the batting, admitted to me last week that, although he had visited India four or five times (including a Champions League stint with Somerset), he has not played a first-class fixture there.

Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root have played Lions one-day fixtures in India but no first-class cricket. Remarkably, even though he has played in the IPL, Eoin Morgan has never played for England in an international in India. In fact England's lack of Test experience in India is shocking. Of the batsmen, only Cook, Pietersen and Bell have played Tests there.

Of those, Cook and Pietersen have done decently, both averaging over 40 - the former making a century on his debut and the latter scoring 144 in the second Test four years ago - but in his five Tests, Bell has really struggled, averaging only 20.

Prior played in both Tests in 2008, making 53 not out and 33 in Chennai, but of the bowlers Monty Panesar, with five Tests, is the most experienced, and it is far from certain that he might partner Swann, who made a stunning debut - taking a wicket in his first over - in Chennai four years ago.

Samit Patel is a likelier option, as he was in England's victory in Colombo last spring. Of the others, Stuart Broad has played just one Test in India, although in his three Tests Anderson has encouraging figures. The cliche is that England's batsmen cannot play spin, but cliches only exist because they reflect an enduring truism. The evidence mounts.

In fairness, last winter's hammering by Pakistan in the UAE can be compartmentalised. The conditions there were unique. It was not necessarily spin that scuppered England, rather the low skiddy pitches in concert with the surprisingly quick pace at which the spinners Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman bowled. That said, spin, in the rather dumpy shape of the left-arm spinner Rangana Herath, did for England in their first-Test defeat against Sri Lanka in Galle, and it was instructive talking to Andrew Strauss last summer (pre-retirement and pre- Pietersen saga) about the winter's problems against the twirlers.

The decision review system may not be in place for this forthcoming series but it has still changed umpires' thinking for good. Pad-play is now as outdated as spiked gloves. "It became a balancing act between being bloody-minded in backing what has worked for you in the past and it becoming obvious you have to change," said Strauss who scored twin centuries in that Chennai Test in 2008. "A lot of us realised that and, when we did, the rate of improvement happened quite quickly. KP was a great example of this and I think Belly, Cooky and I all made strides forward. It will stand us in good stead this winter."

Of course, not for the piped-and-slippered Strauss it won't. But the others still have it all to prove, even Pietersen, whose coruscating century set up the Colombo success. Attention upon him will not, sadly, be confined to how far to the leg-side he keeps his left leg to the left-arm spinners.

India will certainly not under-employ their spinners - left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha opened the bowling on a couple of occasions in their last series against New Zealand and has formed an imposing partnership with off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

It was rather worrying that England were dismissed for just 80 in the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka recently by India's now second-choice spinners, leg-spinner Piyush Chawla and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh.

And the history books are horribly unkind when recounting England's Test times in India. In 13 Test series there England have won only four, the last of those being in 1984/85.

They have won only 11 of 51 Tests in all, the last coming in Mumbai in 2006, Flintoff's apogee as captain, with his team inspired by singing Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire at lunch on the final day and Shaun Udal taking four second-innings wickets.

It was as unlikely as an England series victory would be now.