By Jonathan Agnew BBC cricket correspondent

England will receive a reception fit for heroes when they touch down in Chennai, which should help to ease the nagging doubts Jonathan Agnew

The decision to return to India is quite a result for the England & Wales Cricket Board.

Together with the Professional Cricketers' Association, whose input should not be understated, the administrators have put back on track a tour that seemed beyond salvation only a few days ago.

The players voted with one voice, underlining the team's solidarity and the deep respect the cricketers have for one another.

But there will still be a great deal of tension over the next fortnight. The security will be both suffocating and, for Westerners, bewildering.

The players will be confined to their fortress of a hotel, conveyed to and from the ground in a siren-wailing convoy and surrounded wherever they go by commandos bristling with weapons.

It is not an environment in which international sportsmen can flourish and produce their best, and is to be avoided when at all possible, but these are not normal times.

England are hopelessly underprepared and have not played a Test match for four months.

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But we must acknowledge the quality of the cricket is of secondary importance this time.

There will be cricket lovers in Pakistan who, with some justification, might ponder whether England would have played there under similar circumstances.

Indeed, we must not lose sight of the political game that has had a major influence here, with the ECB desperate to improve its relationship with its counterpart, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

It could also be argued that those England players who have an eye on signing a lucrative Indian Premier League contract might have appeared hypocritical to have opted out now, but appeared for an Indian franchise in three months.

England will receive a reception fit for heroes when they touch down in Chennai, which should help to ease the nagging doubts that some players inevitably will harbour about returning.

Let us hope that the Indian cricket lovers in Chennai and Mohali show their support by bucking the current trend and turning out in force for the Test matches.

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