One step from a hero's welcome

Shoulder to shoulder: Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison have been persuaded, however reluctantly, to countenance a return to India © Getty Images

It is roughly 3400 miles from London to Abu Dhabi, and a further 1800 from Abu Dhabi to Chennai, the venue for next week's first Test between England and India. As the crow flies, therefore, England's cricketers - who touched down at Dubai Airport this morning - could be said to be two-thirds of the way towards getting on with a Test series that everyone, apart from the players themselves (and Dominic Cork), now seem adamant should go ahead.

If only decisions and distance could be measured by the same yardsticks, however. England's unilateral decision to set off for the Middle East - no excuses, no withdrawals - may give the impression of a band of brothers united in the face of evil, but the reality remains somewhat different. A well-paid bunch of professional cricketers have merely arrived for a training camp in a peaceful corner of the Arabian Desert. That in itself is no reason to stop the presses.

As has been the case all week, the real tale of England's tour cannot progress even a fraction of those 5200 miles until Reg Dickason's Security Audit, a parchment that has earned the same capitalised significance as the Dead Sea Scrolls, lands up in the hands of England's cricketers. For all Kevin Pietersen's bold words about "standing shoulder to shoulder" with India in their hour of need, without Dickason's input there's still every chance the team could scurry, nose to tail, straight back whence they came. Until they have been counted onto that plane to Chennai, and counted off at the other end, the impasse cannot be said to be over.

The rights and wrongs of the resumption have been debated endlessly in this past week, and there aren't many people left standing who would wish the team to renege on their stated intention to return. As Andy Bull wrote in The Guardian this week, baseball in New York resumed mere days after the September 11 attacks, at a time when the escapist nonsense of sporting endeavour had never seemed so important to a scarred city. In an ideal world, England would march straight back to the Brabourne in Mumbai, throw down their bags in the foyer of the Taj and declare "we refuse to be cowed by cowards". In a less-than-ideal world, an appearance anywhere on the subcontinent would do the trick nicely.

Will they appear? Probably. How many of them will appear? All of them, conceivably, which would be something of a coup, though there's still plenty time for one or two high-profile candidates to put their hands down and leg it from the party. The reported reticence of Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison, whose impassioned words in last week's Mail on Sunday left no doubt as to his preferred course of action, cannot have entirely dissipated. For all Pietersen's tub-thumping phraseology about travelling as a "collective", no-one has yet explained what the ramifications would be if one of his team-mates finally turned around and said "sorry skip, actually, I don't fancy this after all."

	India has the economy to transform these men from job-a-day pros to richly rewarded athletes. Thumbing one's nose at the country in its hour of need would not be the most savvy business decision

Even so, a full England contingent made it through customs at Dubai Airport this morning, and after Cork's wild-eyed assertion that "five or six" players were on the verge of telling the ECB where to stick it, that is a pretty impressive show of strength. What has changed between then and now? Pietersen insisted there had been no extra persuasion, rather his team-mates had become more "open-minded" in the interim - which presumably translates as less stick, and more carrot. For any sportsman in the prime of their professional lives, it pays to be where the action is, even when that action gets rather hotter than they'd bargained for. India has the economy to transform these men from job-a-day pros to richly rewarded athletes. Thumbing one's nose at the country in its hour of need would not be the most savvy business decision.

It's not entirely impossible that England's perceived willingness to tour stems from something more noble than the bottom line. Certainly there is a near-unanimous consensus in the English media that the show must go on, which you could scarcely imagine would be the case if Pakistan, for instance, was the intended destination. Doubtless the emotive references to "India's 9/11" ramp up a sense of a fellow democracy under siege from terrorism, and the moral obligation entailed therein, but somehow I doubt it. Intense pressure from two boards, and a pragmatic acceptance that lightning does not strike twice, is more likely to have won the day.

As it is, any England cricketer who takes the plunge and makes that final push to Chennai next week is sure to be welcomed like a conquering hero - or would be, if they hadn't demanded a commando retinue to whisk them unnoticed through the adoring throng. No-one is likely to emerge with more credit than Pietersen, whose poise and powers of persuasion have made him untouchable as the leader of his country. Never mind last month's 5-0 drubbing, he could go on to lose the Ashes by the same margin, having switch-hit every ball of the series straight into the hands of deep cover, and still have enough brownie points with the ECB to name his own retirement date.

And that's to say nothing of the gratitude that will surely be conferred on him by the Indians who have so desperately campaigned for England's return to their shores. Lalit Modi recently suggested that Pietersen would "add no value" if he signed a short-term IPL deal. I doubt if he feels the same way still. The entire marketability of the IPL brand hinges on the willingness of players to travel to India and export the interest around the world. Through his willingness to lead England back across the waters, Pietersen has become a de facto brand ambassador, whether he signs on the dotted line or not.