A dressing room with more dressings than the average World War II field hospital and a toilet you'd wait 82 miles on a crawling M1 to avoid.

Hardly the picture of glamour associated with high-level international sporting prowess.

But that's exactly what our lads have been faced with in India in the last couple of weeks.

Practically a whole team's worth have been dropped by illness, injury or various tick 'other' box crises in a manner that would have the flies out on strike at the obvious and insulting analogy.

Top order bat Michael Vaughan was already looking dodgy when opening bat number one commissioned MT flown home - the unofficial movie of the tour.

One man who should have been sat next to Trescothick on the flight was Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff, whose wife Rachel is due to give birth to another Bam Bam or Pebbles any day now.

Instead, he was rolled into a press conference with the dazed excitable look of a schoolboy being given the keys to his dad's shiny new Merc and told to answer questions about being the captain.

Behind the scenes, the three slow-arm bowlers politely jostling for a crack at England stardom with King of Spain Ashley Giles TV sofa'd following hip surgery, all went down in a spell of mutual gut-chucking.

Simon Jones mimicked their crumpled up pose by the loo only to then, after making a manful recovery, crumple a second time with a knee problem.

He's now sitting (naturally) patiently in specialist Dirk Bickerstaff's waiting room for Vaughany to come out. There must be a buy one get one free deal in place.

Meanwhile, back in the isolation bathrooms of the team hotel, the Giles three (Ian Blackwell, Shaun Udal and Monty Panesar) pick up while the physios get to work on Kevin Pietersen's back, Paul Collingwood's back and Liam Plunkett's (Achilles) heel.

Analysts are not so much looking at past scorecards as an entire back catalogue of Carry On films.

The selectors are scratching their heads under the protection of bodyguards - not the Kevin Costner type, more cotton wool and bubble wrap.

But even the Carry On films had a hero. Well, they tried at least.

And the players delivered on that - but then they were hardly going to get a 'services to NHS waiting lists' Oscar.

Collingwood put his back problems behind him (ahem) and hit his maiden test century in a stunning unbeaten 134 including a six on 93 to take him to 99, his first ton following next ball.

Panesar won the battle with the stomach bug to become England's first ever Sikh cricketer and bag two wickets into the bargain, and Pietersen - he of the buttery Ashes fingers - held the first catch of the day.

Beautiful stuff - win or lose. Even without the glamour.

Updated: 10:30 Saturday, March 04, 2006