RIVAL CAPTAINS IN SPOTLIGHT
India lost their world-beating Test status to England in a 4-0 whitewash in 2011, and the same opponents defeated them on home soil too for the first time in a generation a year later.
It is a significant understatement, however, to note that much has changed since then.
Alastair Cook, for starters, was a force each time beyond which India could not progress.
Three years ago, as a foot-soldier still under the captaincy of Andrew Strauss, Cook compiled a tour de force career-best 294 as England piled up 710 for seven declared in an Edgbaston victory which put them 3-0 up and deposed a fading India at the top of the International Cricket Council rankings.
Fifteen months later, Cook again - on his first assignment as captain, as well as senior opener - was the central figure.
Three big hundreds in four innings, the last making him England's all-time most prolific Test centurion, began with a statement of defiance that the 2012/13 tourists had some fight.
Then after defeat in Ahmedabad, Cook and Kevin Pietersen turned the tide in Mumbai before the captain consolidated in Kolkata - where he was run out for the first time in his career, having made 190.
After leading England to their first Test series win in India since 1984/85 - Cook was born on Christmas Day that same winter - it seemed he could do no wrong.
Yet when the return fixture starts at Trent Bridge next week, at the age of 29 Cook will be under maximum pressure to silence the doubters.
He has done so previously, to famous effect.
Four years ago, many depicted a career-saving century against Pakistan at The Oval - before an Ashes winter in which a prolific Cook rewrote a raft of records with nearly 800 runs in seven innings as England won in Australia for the first time in almost a quarter-of-a-century.
There have been highs, notably in India of course, in the intervening years - but precious few of late.
So it is that Cook will begin a series of five Tests back-to-back with everything to prove all over again.
The questions are many, and resonant, from those with an agenda.
Is he an effective Test captain after all? Will he ever add to his record 25 Test centuries, having gone 24 innings and more than a year without one? Is the pressure of leadership adversely affecting his batting - and, of course, vice-versa?
Cook knows better than anyone there is only one way to halt the animated debate.
He knows too that he has managed to do so before, made a habit of it even.
This, though, is not a problem in one dimension.
There are aggravating tangents around the vicious circle.
Pietersen is the prime example, his controversial axing after England's Ashes whitewash under Cook last winter having had contrasting consequences already.
It helped to cleared the decks, as England's new management presumably intended, putting distance between old and new.
It also raised the stakes of success or failure for the incumbents.
For better or worse, instead of a headline participant, Pietersen is cast as witness - hostile or otherwise - via his national newspaper column, and social media, to everything that happens under the watch of Cook and returning coach Peter Moores.
England's Test cricketers, still at the start of their much-discussed 'new era', have rarely been more squarely under the microscope - and Cook is centre screen in everything he does.
The age of media dissection is stifling, Cook's every move as captain and opener played to millions over and over again alongside expert analysis.
He will not be the only one, though.
'Welcome to my world', his opposite number Mahendra Singh Dhoni might well say.
The India captain - and wicketkeeper, and batsman - may be the highest-paid cricketer in history.
But he shells out a heavy price too, in a different currency, as a billion hopes rest on his shoulders.
India cricket supporters do not take kindly to disappointment either.
As Dhoni and India's former England coach Duncan Fletcher - a rare constant from 2011 - try to facilitate their own new era, like Cook they can expect no breathing space.
There is no change there, perhaps, for Dhoni - except that the superstar retirements of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman mean India, like England, remain in a state of transition.
They have achieved post-Tendulkar already in this country, in last summer's Champions Trophy - and foundered too, both with and then in the waning of their golden, evergreen generation in those 2011 and 2012 Test defeats against England.
This summer, England and India will contest their first five-match series since David Gower's tourists beat Sunil Gavaskar's hosts 30 years ago.
There will be no shortage of sub-plots on either side.
Is England's linchpin seamer James Anderson still the force of old, for example? Can the hosts' new breed cut it? Will India's powerhouse middle order prove all it is cracked up to be in alien conditions? Do the tourists have an effective bowling attack?
But the two captains have the most by far to win and lose.
