What a match. And what a turn-up for the books. Rarely has one-day cricket been taken so seriously in England, but then again, rarely has so much pride been at stake. Like a pair of heavyweights at the World Staring Championships, England and India focussed on a point in the far distance, and refused to be distracted from the task at hand. In the end, it was India who prevailed, driven to the point of dementia by their failure in nine successive one-day finals. But England, an ever-improving unit, shouldn't be ashamed of their efforts. Rather than allow themselves the luxury of blinking first, they preferred that their eyeballs should pop out of their sockets and roll onto the turf in exhaustion.

At 146 for 5, with Sachin Tendulkar out and a pair of rookies at the crease, India looked primed for their customary middle-order collapse, and another failure at the final hurdle. But Yuvraj Singh, 20, and Mohammad Kaif, 21, have little in common with the bottlers of yesteryear, and they steered India to the brink of victory with thrilling élan.

In any other circumstances, England's inability to defend a total of 325 would be a treasonable offence. But there can be no fingers pointed on this occasion. Ashley Giles bowled an immaculate spell on an unforgiving wicket; Ronnie Irani recovered from a four-boundary mauling in his first over to nip out two vital wickets, and Darren Gough and Andrew Flintoff bowled with heart and skill at the death. They were good, but on the day they were not quite good enough, and two of the team will be especially distraught this evening.

Marcus Trescothick – aka Jonah – has seen it all before, not that defeat gets any easier to swallow. His third one-day international century ended as the first two had done, in valiant failure, and such is his burgeoning reputation in one-day cricket, that this statistic is threatening to become as much of an anomaly as Ian Botham's shortcomings against West Indies.

Spare a thought, too, for Nasser Hussain, who thought he had found the perfect answer to all those who doubt his one-day role. At the last minute, however, someone altered the question-paper.

Cricket celebrations come in all shapes and sizes: Curtly Ambrose's whirring wristbands, Michael Slater's jubilant badge-kissing, Dominic Cork's mysterious three-fingered salute. Today, on reaching his first one-day century for England, Hussain expressed his delight through defiance. His quirky limb-twitching, right hand jabbing at his squad number like a man who'd dropped his loofah, is perhaps less likely to catch on than more conventional outpourings of joy. His message, however, came across loud and clear: back me at No. 3, or back off.

Hussain has always denied, with a vehemence that betrays his anxieties, that he is a weak link in one-day cricket. His innings today was neither the most fluent he will ever play, nor the most convincing, but for sheer bloody-mindedness it rivalled Steve Waugh at his most obstinate. Every reverse-sweep invited disaster; every miscued yahoo over cover invited all English supporters to avert their gaze. But he ground on and on, and once again demonstrated that old-fashioned values such as partnership-building, are every bit as important as 20-run cameos.

For England, it is a shame that the first NatWest tournament to capture the public's imagination should end in defeat. Yet in many ways, it is also a blessing in disguise. One-day matches as good as this do not grow on trees; it is better to have played and lost, than not to have played it at all.

Andrew Miller is editorial assistant of Wisden.com.

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