This was one-day cricket as it should be. A day of 540 runs, 13 wickets and plenty of chances came down to a couple of duels - Giles v Ganguly, followed by Giles v Agarkar - and then to the last ball. If Ajit Agarkar had managed a four, the match would have been tied and the series would have been India's. He hit it well enough, squirting a square drive through the infield. Millions of enraptured TV viewers saw the ball, unaccompanied, heading for the rope. Then Ashley Giles came trundling into shot like Thomas the Tank Engine, slow but steady, and safely gathered the ball in. The man who had revived England's hopes thwarted the man who had revived India's.

England's selection was spot-on. For the first time, they included all of their mangement committee - Giles and Thorpe as well as Hussain and Trescothick. It's good that the inner circle are prepared to leave themselves out, but having them all there gives the team more backbone.

Andy Caddick returned too, better late than never, and his extra height saw off Sachin Tendulkar. Beautifully as he has batted in this series, Tendulkar has made fewer runs with England forced to bowl straight (254 runs at an average of 63) than he did in the Tests when they elected to bowl at his backside (307 at 76). Even demigods get a nick.

Caddick's strike meant that Darren Gough avoided his main tormentor and settled comfortably into his new role as third seamer, another change that was overdue. Gough even silenced Virender Sehwag, who stroked 35 off his first 20 balls and only seven off his last 16. Andrew Flintoff was flayed by Sehwag but recovered well. Giles was flayed by Ganguly but recovered spectacularly. Vaughan and Collingwood, the two half-bowlers, were not flayed at all.

Nasser Hussain smuggled those two in adroitly, and kept his team's heads up when they might have gone down along with the three missed chances. But he is still strangely reluctant to attack with his field placings. After the turbo-charged start, England had to take wickets to win - not all ten, as the result showed, but the big ones. Giles got his wickets by attacking. The seamers might have had more if they had been given more slips. And one of these days a captain will spot that the new bouncer rule brings short leg back into the realms of possibility.

When England batted, everything had gone about as swimmingly as it can. Nick Knight and Flintoff confirmed their return to form, and Hussain resumed his 40 habit. Flintoff finally emerged from his mire, as he had hinted he might on Monday: he should either stay at No. 4 now or go up to No. 3. But holding Graham Thorpe back behind Vaughan was a minor gamble that failed, and ensured that England didn't get the 290 that Knight's efforts had led them to expect.

In the end, this was a narrower victory than the one at Cuttack, but, fielding apart, a more convincing one. On Sunday, in the great theatre of the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the pressure will now be on India.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden.com.

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