ENGLAND’S players yesterday began preparations for the first Test in India as their bosses headed back to the subcontinent to make final security checks.

In a mish-mash of kit, the Test squad and a shadow side practised in the middle of the Sheikh Zayed Stadium while Hugh Morris, managing director of the England and Wales Cricket Board, and Sean Morris, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, travelled to Chennai.

The two Morris men accompanied a 37-man entourage that arrived in the United Arab Emirates in the early hours of of Thursday morning but were in transit by mid-afternoon yesterday to make security assessments in the southern Indian city ahead of a return to UAE tomorrow evening.

That is when they will relay their findings to Kevin Pietersen’s team and come to a definitive decision on whether to resume the tour in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

In the meantime, the England team, who went home temporarily last Saturday, spent the first of a three-day training camp acclimatising in anticipation of a two-Test series.

‘‘Obviously, the situation being the way it is, we have to make best use of the facilities,’’ said all-rounder Paul Collingwood.

‘‘Sunday is D-day, when we get the full security reports, and really, from a cricketing perspective, we have to be mentally right for starting on Thursday.

‘‘We need to get the physical side back into our bodies – batting for long periods of time, for example – which is what we will get for the next three days here.

‘‘What we’ve got to do as a group of players is be 100 per cent mentally attuned to starting on Thursday, take all the distractions out of the way and when it comes to Sunday night, talk about it again and make a decision.

‘‘Once the Test match starts on Thursday, everything else will be put to bed, and that is what we are trying to do at the moment – get ourselves back into Test match mode.

‘‘We have played that much one-day cricket in the last few months, we have to get ourselves prepared for the longer form of the game.

‘‘It is amazing once you put the pads back on and get into the nets how much you start thinking about the game again: the job in hand, plans and preparations, how you will combat their bowlers and how you will cope with their batters.

‘‘All the talk all of a sudden comes into the cricketing format again. Hopefully everything else goes to the back of the mind because this isn’t an ideal situation, it has kind of been forced upon us, and we have to get used to it.

‘‘We are coming up against a very strong Indian side on their home turf and that is a big proposition, so hopefully there are no excuses. We go out there, make the best use of what we’ve got and try to hit them hard on Thursday.’’ E n g - land are provisionally set to travel to Chennai from UAE on Monday, but the findings of security advisor Reg Dickason, who has spent the last few days in India assessing the ECB’s requests for player safety, and ECB and PCA will be crucial.

‘‘We all have concerns for obvious reasons but we are leaving it in the hands of the people who know what is going on,’’ Collingwood added.

‘‘We have to trust the guys at the top: Reg Dickason, the ECB and BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) to come up with the right decisions to make it safe for us to go.

‘‘Hopefully we send a team out there that feels safe and plays cricket because that is what India needs at the moment – cricket. We need to get back to playing because they’re a cricket-loving nation.’’ Mohali was announced as the second-Test venue this week but that could yet change to help England guarantee arriving home in time for Christmas.

Such is the current uncertainty, even the Abu Dhabi cricket authorities have said they would be willing to stage a Test, but neither participating country have the appetite for it.

India are keen to host an England team on their own soil, but it does not necessarily mean it will be the same squad as was first picked.

Pace bowler Ryan Sidebottom has been ruled out through injury – his replacement will be named tomorrow if required – but others could still make individual choices to opt out.

Many, like Collingwood, who has maintained strong noises about returning if safety is deemed satisfactory, have young families.

And he admitted: ‘‘Your mood fluctuates all the time.

Every single person had concerns about the security in India. Hopefully we all get on that plane and go to play cricket.’’ Collingwood has experience of enhanced security in India, having been on the one-day tour of 2002 that came soon after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Key all-rounder Andrew Flintoff was also on that trip and he went some way to allaying fears over his latest left-ankle niggle by bowling at the ground at which he made his initial comeback from a fourth operation, on Lancashire duty earlier this year.

England only checked in at 4.15am yesterday but were practising nine hours later in a mix of coloured and white kit. Their white Test kit and equipment is currently in Baroda, where a practice match was originally scheduled for yesterday.