Vaughan scored three centuries in those four Tests five years ago, including his two highest scores of 197 at Nottingham and 195 at The Oval.

• India-England Test stats

He then scored three more hundreds in England's following series, in Australia, when he topped the world batting rankings.

"In that year I did a lot of the basic stuff well," Vaughan told reporters on Wednesday. "Once you do that you can elaborate and attack the bowlers more. That's my style exactly when I'm playing well.

"I thought I was doing that reasonably well earlier this summer (against West Indies [Images]) and it's what I hope to do this series, do the basics well and give myself the chance to get a good score.

"It is a similar kind of attack (to 2002) with left-armers and (Anil) Kumble, just missing Harbhajan (Singh) from that attack, but that was then and this is now and I'm going to have to start afresh."

England's bowling attack will have a new look with Stuart Broad and Chris Tremlett in the 13-man squad together with James Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom.

RAW ATTACK

With Matthew Hoggard [Images] having a scan on a back injury on Wednesday afternoon and rated "extremely doubtful", the England attack -- missing both Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff [Images] for the first time since October 2003 -- could look very raw.

England have not lost a Test series at home since 2001 against Australia but India captain Rahul Dravid [Images] predicted "an even contest" on Wednesday.

Dravid, on his third Test tour of England, is confident India can win their first series here since 1986 when Kapil Dev [Images] was captain.

"They're pretty evenly matches sides," Dravid told reporters. "England have had a lot of success with the bat this summer against West Indies, we've got a pretty formidable batting line-up and both sets of attacks are inexperienced.

"So it should be a good, even contest and it's really a challenge for both sets of bowlers to be able to take 20 wickets in the series."

The "formidable batting lineup" Dravid referred to is so strong that Yuvraj Singh [Images], who was recently their vice-captain, is expected to make way for VVS Laxman to play.

Dravid predicted major things from Laxman, saying: "I feel he is going to be a big factor for us in this series."

Zaheer Khan [Images] and Shanthakumaran Sreesanth [Images] are expected to open the bowling for India, backed by leg-spinner Kumble. Rudra Pratap Singh is likely to claim the final bowling place.