India, England trust their skillsets in exciting leap into the unknown

In unknown territory, you hold familiar things close. A habit. That cosy blanket. A routine. Or equipment.

Smriti Mandhana walked in for her press conference with her batting pads tucked under her arms. England had loud music - chartbusters from Taylor Swift, Tiesto, Dua Lipa et al - while they trained. The unfamiliar terrain is a home Women's Test for India. The last time it happened was in 2014. Only Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur from that match remain in India's squad for the one-off Test against England at DY Patil Stadium.

This will be the first Test for India since Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami retired last year. They started their preparation for the Test with a four-day intra-squad match - India vs India A - at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru in November. That is where Shubha Satheesh impressed the selectors with her batting. There were more red-ball training sessions before the players dispersed - for India, India A and inter-zonal duties.

Even when the T20Is against England were on at the Wankhede Stadium, the Test-only players - Shubha, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana and Meghna Singh - in the squad trained hard with the red ball.

"Bodies are not used to playing four back-to-back days of cricket because we generally play T20s and ODIs which have gaps," Mandhana said. "More than physical part, being there [on the field] for four days mentally, trying to focus on each ball [is important].

"If you mentally prepare yourself, I don't think [moving from T20Is to Tests] is a big change because it is about applying yourself. The batting is not about changing a lot of techniques; it is about the mental shift of patience more than anything. That will be crucial because I don't see anyone changing their batting or bowling techniques. That takes a lot of time."

While players all over the world feast on white-ball cricket, be it in their respective domestic circuits or in T20 leagues, nowhere do they train for multi-day cricket. Even England and Australia, who regularly play one-off Tests as part of the Women's Ashes, do not have two-, three- or four-day cricket at the domestic level.

The BCCI discontinued multi-day cricket for women in the domestic circuit after 2018. Women's age-group cricket as well as senior women's tournaments have been confined to the T20 and 50-over formats since.

"To be fair, we have played a lot of T20s and one-dayers in the last four-five years. And hence the structure was in place to help us get more T20s and one-day experience because we had more T20 and one-day World Cups," Mandhana said. "We didn't play many Tests. As the number of Tests increase, we may see a new domestic tournament for long-form cricket. Domestic structure is always according to international demands."

England head coach Jon Lewis, who previously was with the men's team as pace-bowling coach, brought along the positivity from the men's Test set-up where he was briefly part of the Brendon McCullum-led coaching staff. He has seen how the men prepare - first-class games galore before coming into Test cricket - and the complete opposite in the women's system. It has held them back in certain situations, like when England went for a fourth-innings chase of 268 at Trent Bridge earlier this year and fell short. Lewis' mantra is simple - look at Tests as an extension of the white-ball games, which the women are used to playing, and do what you do best.

"The key thing is the mindset they take into the game and understanding that the skills that they're using are the same skills they are using in white-ball cricket," he said. "The anxiety that players on both sides will feel will be around understanding of the game itself because they just don't play a lot of it. They might watch a lot of it and listen to people on TV - but from my experience people on TV don't talk a lot of sense. Some do, some don't, but they have to fill time.

"What we'll try and do is get the minds in the right place as best as we can. [With] the skills they have got, they are more than capable of playing the game in front of them. Having one-off Test matches is very tricky especially for a coach to prepare the team as best as I can. The time and space to do it is limited and we don't play red-ball cricket or two-day, three-day, four-day cricket domestically. Our last game was the Ashes. We'll try and play an entertaining brand of cricket."

All's not new for England, who last played a Test match earlier this year. They also played a couple of Tests - one each against Australia and South Africa - last year. For them, the unknown lies more in the conditions, and adapting to them. England last played a Test match in India in 2005; there is no recent experience to draw from apart from white-ball games.

"Pretty quick turnaround - we have talked about that; we have done it before," England captain Heather Knight, for whom playing a Test match in India is one of her "bucket-list things as a cricketer" said. "We have played an Ashes Test match in Canberra in 2022, where we had two days' preparation.

"That can create a little bit of anxiety around not feeling ready. [It is] about getting the heads right around knowing exactly how to approach Test-match cricket, how you want to play and not thinking too much about conditions and pre-planning what might happen, because you don't know what surface you will get. We won't have the perfect prep but that is how it works in international cricket - it is about getting your head right and embracing the challenge."

Opener Tammy Beaumont is coming off a double-century in Nottingham, a knock that is now a good six months old. She pays heed to what her father reminds her every time she plays a game: "You start again on nought."

"It's funny actually," Beaumont, the first Englishwoman to score a Test double-ton, said on ESPNcricinfo's Ladies Who Switch podcast. "When Jon Lewis called me about selection news, [he said] 'I don't think there's a more in-form Test player at the moment.' I was like that was six months ago, how do you stay in form?

"You try and take learnings from each Test match you play. It is not something you can jump straight into. These days we play a lot of T20s and a lot of 50 overs, that becomes [automatic]. Whereas when you are learning to do things, you have to think about it again.

"The big part is not thinking a lot about the big picture all the time. At Trent Bridge when we fielded for a day-and-a-half, when the final wicket fell, we had 470 [473] to get. If you do that you are shooting yourself in the foot somewhat. Whereas the most important thing was to get through to the next drinks break. Just get through to the new ball, make sure we don't lose a wicket before, whatever, seeing the shine off it. Next thing, change of bowler, what are they trying to do, how can I score of them, next bit. Oh, time to sit down now, tea time! Just try to constantly staying in that moment and thinking about that and not getting far ahead of yourself."

When the two teams take the field in whites on Thursday, a lot of things will be different. But they will reassure themselves with the thought that they have done their best in the limited time they have had, and let their skills and instincts take over.