One way to look at the face-off between captains Alastair Cook and MS Dhoni is that they are both, essentially, reactive and attritional leaders.
Both are level-headed to a fault and have a tendency to let things drift horribly in the field when affairs are not going well.
Dhoni has a natural feel for the limited-overs formats, but in Tests, being formulaic does not work.
At times, during eight successive Test losses to England and Australia across 2011/12, he seemed entirely bereft of ideas.
It might help if the surfaces are as dry, as expected.
That will allow him to work with his spinners, something he has usually managed well.
It would also help if he can find a role for himself with the bat.
He has not led by example over the last couple of years: since July 2011, he averages less than 28 away from home, with just four fifties in 21 innings, and nine losses in 11 under him.
Yet, so ensconced is he that you wonder how much pressure is really on him.
If he can survive the kind of results he has, then what are the chances that he survives another debilitating loss here?
At least he is unlikely to be outmanoeuvred, as Michael Clarke and Brendon McCullum have done at times.
Cook has his own issues to deal with, not least with the bat.
On good days, if nothing else, Cook has shown himself to be a leader by batting example.
Get in, bat long, take the side along and then captaincy in the field suddenly becomes much simpler.
Now he has no hundred since May last summer, a run of 24 innings in 12 Tests.
He averages 25 since then and the pressure has begun to tell.
He was within his rights to hit back at Shane Warne’s continuing criticism.
But for such an even-natured man, it was a telling moment, nonetheless, of how much England’s and his own poor run is affecting him.
A series loss to Sri Lanka has ratcheted up the pressure. Each new day brings further blowback from the Kevin Pietersen affair.
If Cook is to see England into a new era, more than anything he does on the field, he needs to get back to scoring runs.
That is how he knows to lead.
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