NatWest Series, Match 5, Chester-le-Street
Thursday, July 4, 2002

I've got to be honest and say that India were favourites. They had the runs on the board, although having said that it was still a pretty good wicket and we've chased well recently, so there was no reason why we couldn't have got the runs.

I thought Sachin Tendulkar played just a great one-day innings. It was a perfect example of how to pace yourself, and how not to panic if you lose two or three early wickets. Then at the end it was just exceptional, extraordinary batting.

We'd been going well – Ronnie Irani and Andrew Flintoff did a great job in the middle - and in the 41st over we were exactly where we wanted to be. Then they smashed it all over the place. But I've got no complaints – we bowled and fielded well, but sometimes a great player is just too good for you. That's what happened today.

Yuvraj Singh looked good again as well. We saw a bit of him in the ICC Trophy a couple of years back when he smacked 80-odd against Australia, so we knew what to expect in this series. His innings was a bit like Freddie's in the first match against Sri Lanka – it was nicely lined up for him to come in and blast it around, and he did.

Even Darren Gough took a bit of stick, and he's one of the best death bowlers in the world. But it's been great to have Goughie back – we need a wicket-taker and he always does that for us. His experience is priceless.

There was a bit of banter between Marcus Trescothick and Zaheer Khan when we batted, but I don't think there was anything in it. Zaheer said a few things, and Marcus isn't the sort of bloke to keep quiet. He did his talking with the bat, but then Zaheer came back and got him. That's what it's all about – it was a good contest.

One more win puts us in the final, but this series is not as important as the cricket we're playing. We've been batting well, although we should have got more than 271 at Lord's.

There are a few things that need improving: teams have been getting big scores against us, so we need to look at the fourth, fifth and sixth bowlers. And we need to hit the stumps more on run-outs – we seem to be missing a bit too much. But apart from that, we're fairly happy with the way its going. Our one-day cricket is definitely on the up.

Nasser Hussain was talking to Rob Smyth. His thoughts will appear on Wisden.com, other duties permitting, at the end of each day of England's international cricket this summer.

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