In Southampton, a port city from where the Titanic left before drowning, India will swim or sink against England. Virat Kohli is about to step into the batting nets when he sees a bearded man in jumpers and envelops him with a hug. Going by the high-fives and hugs, most of the Indian players seem to know him well. It’s Nic Pothas, who was until recently Sri Lanka’s coach, and the one who was seen in a face mask in Delhi during the infamous smog Test. There is another reason that the Indians are happy to see him. He is a former Hampshire cricketer and one who knows the conditions here well. And he is in Kohli’s ears. He gesticulates about the pitch and can be seen mimicking an action of a batsman on his frontfoot and is surprised by the bounce. Kohli listens and both shadow practice for a minute or two before Kohli heads into the nets. It looks as if there would be lot of spongy bounce on this track, and some spin on the fourth and fifth day,” says a member. “It looks like England has perhaps decided bounce is the way to go after all their batsmen didn’t too well against swing themselves.”

It should be interesting if the pitch ends up playing that way. It does look hard but as Indian team has shown at Edgsbaston and Lord’s, predicting pitches is a risky affair. Southampton normally throws a dry batting pitch, but this one might be different. In the middle of May, in an interview, the head groundsman Karl McDermott, an Irishman, talks about the pitch for this Test. He says he expects someone from ECB would have a word with him soon, and adds in jest, “As it’s India, I am pretty sure they won’t want me to produce a turner.” It’s the first Test here since 2014, third overall. Not much Test tradition here but Indians would be playing a few matches in the next year’s world cup. They would be seeing a lot of McDermott. Indians trained on Monday for a while after five days of break. On Tuesday, before the practice started, Debang Gandhi was in a 15-minute chat with Shikhar Dhawan. It could be about where to get vada pav here or about cricket, one doesn’t know. In the middle, not far from the centre pitch, Ravi Shastri had all the fast bowlers around him and Kohli and Bharat Arun – from a distance, it seemed an intense chat, Shastri gesticulating the action of a batsman edging behind. Steyn, the promoter Out of their sight, around the periphery of the ground, Dale Steyn was walking with his Hampshire team-mates. He has been used by the local association to promote the ground and the Test match between England and India. A video props up on the official site where he is talking about the arena and its ambience, and about India’s mad love with cricket. Elsewhere, Prithvi Shaw, who would later fend couple of bouncers from the net bowlers, was taking slip catch practice. R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were already wheeling their arms over at the batsmen at a net.

All in all, just another pre-game day though this isn’t just another game. They could win it 3-2 or go down 1-4. Only once in England, have they ever won more than a Test — 1986 when Kapil’s Devils triumphed 2-0. History is calling the Indians and by the way they have gone about their business in the recent couple of weeks, it seems they are all ears. Nobody does history better than England; they scarcely ever let you forget their past: the good, bad, and the ugly. Southampton is a place dotted with memorials to Tudor-era remnants, ancient walls that whisper tales of the yore. Tragedy too jostles for a mental space. This is the port city where the Titanic ship left to drown, nearly 500 families here lost a member. A museum that has a replica of the ship, a disaster room, oral testimonies of tragedy and memorials are scattered around the town. It’s here, to use the cliché, India will swim or sink.