Fresh from their One-Day International series triumph over South Africa in Ireland, India launch their gruelling tour of England with a four-day warm-up game against County champions Sussex at Hove on Saturday.
The teams, however, will keep one eye on the quirky weather as it has been raining regularly for the last few days.
With hardly any cricket for about a week since the series win against South Africa, the Indians will be looking forward to field their best combination in the two warm-up games leading up to the first Test at the Lord's on July 19.
Accordingly, Test regulars Anil Kumble, V V S Laxman and Wasim Jaffer are almost certain to make the cut for the final eleven.
Among the batsmen, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Dinesh Karthik will try to get into shape ahead of the Test series.
The Indian top order did well to get some runs under the belt against a decent South African attack in the Future Cup series and would be keen on continuing with that impressive form.
In bowling department, S Sreesanth has fully recovered from a bout of flu that ruled him out of the one-day series in Ireland and will be sharing the new ball with Zaheer Khan.
Captain Rahul Dravid will also be interested to see new pace inclusion Ranadeb Bose perform in a match situation.
With the presence of Pakistan players Mushtaq Ahmed, Saqlain Mushtaq and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan in the rival ranks, the Indians can certainly expect a bit more spice added to the contest.
Led by the 37-year old Chris Adams, who played five Tests for England, Sussex banked on the guiles of Mushtaq to break the title jinx in 2003 before winning it again last year. In each season, Mushtaq finished with 103 and 102 wickets respectively.
Sussex has been well served by former Zimbabwe batsman Murray Goodwin and Richard Montogerie, both of whom have been in fine form. The 34-year old Goodwin played 17 Tests for Zimbabwe before moving to Australia - where he grew up in 2000.
Michael Yardy, Andy Hodd and Carl Hopkinson are the others in the line-up that also includes two all-rounders in Luke Wright and Robin Martin-Jenkins.
Chris Liddle, Jason Lewry and James Kirtley form a decent pace attack for the hosts.
The teams (from):
Sussex: Chris Adams (Capt), Murray Goodwin, Richard Montogerie, Andy Hodd, Carl Hopkinson, James Kirtley, Jason Lewry, Chris Liddle, Robin Martin-Jenkins, Chris Nash, Matt Prior (wk), Ollie Rayner, Thomas Smith, Michael Thorney, Kuke Wright, Michael Yardy, Mushtaq Ahmed, Saqlain Mushtaq, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan.
India: Rahul Dravid (Capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, M S Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, V V S Laxman, Dinesh Karthik, Ramesh Powar, S Sreesanth, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir, R P Singh, Wasim Jaffer, Anil Kumble, Ranadeb Bose and Ishant Sharma.
