India v England: Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar return in style to haunt coach Duncan Fletcher Observers here say their relationship is cordial with Fletcher in charge of team preparation before the game and Dhoni thereafter but you wonder if the pair are as one on the pitch policy. But if Fletcher doesn't try to talk him out of it then Sachin Tendulkar might, judging from the way the Little Master struggled against Panesar, who dismissed him twice in the match for eight. After the match, Dhoni singled out Panesar as being the difference between the sides and he was right, though this generosity might have disguised an attempt to distract Panesar by placing extra focus upon him in a country where cricketers cannot walk 50 yards without drawing a big crowd. Devon Malcolm once had his head turned by praise from Nelson Mandela and Panesar, with 11 wickets in the match, wouldn't be the first cricketer in England's current squad to be seduced by India's siren call. Panesar is a metronomic almost mechanical bowler, a long way from the subtle shifts employed by someone like Swann or fellow Sikh, Bishen Bedi. His flatter trajectory and extra pace (his average speed was around 54mph, five miles an hour faster than Pragyan Ojha, India's left-arm spinner) were perfectly suited to a pitch turning as regularly as the one at Wankhede. When all the variations you need are in the surface you don't need any from the hand and Panesar simply did what he does best, getting ball after ball in the business zone with zip and spin. Because of his extra pace the extra bounce in the Wankhede pitch, over the one in Ahmedabad, suited him better too. It meant that India's batsmen were less able to adjust their feet and play off the back foot, at least with the power and certainty managed by Kevin Pietersen and Alastair Cook against their spinners. Both tall men, the extra bounce opened up scoring areas to Pietersen and Cook not available to them in the first Test, something India's batsmen were not able to exploit as well due to Panesar and indeed Swann's, fuller length and extra pace. If the groundsman at Eden Gardens in Calcutta has enough time, he'll make sure the pitch for the third Test in a week's time is slower with less bounce. India used to have a spinner who hustled it through in Anil Kumble. On pitches like the one the other day, he was often more dangerous than Shane Warne, who could turn it on any surface but couldn't bowl as quickly as Kumble. Harbhajan Singh's bowling used to have vim but he has lost confidence of late and bowled poorly in Mumbai. Another reason why Swann and Panesar were so rampant is that India's batsmen, apart from being short of cricket at the moment, are no longer brought up on the kind of pitches Dhoni has referred to as "our heritage." In a piece for Wisden India, WV Raman, a former Test player, says that due to a standardisation of pitches directive from the Board of Control for Cricket in India a few years ago, which brought a plethora of bland batting tracks, young batsmen have simply lost skills of playing on turners. Judging from the fraught innings Virat Kohli played he may be right though Cheteshwar Pujara, who made 135 in the first innings, would have made a strong case for the defence. Dhoni's insistence that he wants turning pitches in order to minimise the influence of the toss and remove boring draws from the equation are laudable. With the current series level at 1-1 he insists the team that shows the most character from now on will go on to win. With Panesar and Swann central to England's chances, Cook will be hoping that the pair stays free of injury and illness (there is no backup other than Samit Patel) and that India's captain keeps getting the pitches he wants.