Gambhir taking England seriously

India batsman Gautam Gambhir believes England will be hard to beat in the upcoming one-day series.

Opener believes tourists will be hard to beat

India batsman Gautam Gambhir believes England will be hard to beat in the upcoming one-day series. The tourists may have had a disappointing trip to the Caribbean recently but Gambhir believes their 4-0 ODI series triumph over South Africa at the end of the summer will give them plenty of confidence heading into the seven-match series. And with the Indians coming into the series fresh from defeating Australia 2-0 in their recent Test encounters, the opener feels the next month will provide some extremely competitive cricket. "If you look at the way they played the South Africa series, they were able to beat the South Africans really convincingly," Gambhir said. "They will be on a high because of that and we are on a high too because of the kind of cricket we played against Australia. "I think it's going to be a very even contest. You really need to play well to beat England. You can't take them lightly because they have a fantastic bowling attack and a very good combination. "We would really need to play out of our skins to beat them." Like England counterpart Kevin Pietersen, India skipper MS Dhoni has made a sensational start to his captaincy of the one-day side with series wins over Australia and Sri Lanka. However, he acknowledged that past results do not guarantee future performance. "It's possible that we would lose a few matches," he said. "If we do lose matches, the important thing is not to feel low. "We will win some and lose some but we need always to have a positive frame of mind."