2nd ODI, Lord's
Saturday, June 29, 2002

That was a shame, and it's quite a difficult defeat to take, to be honest, as we played a lot of good cricket today. After the start we got we really should have made a score of 300-plus, but credit to them, they bowled bloody well at the death and took it to the wire by getting those yorkers in and keeping us down to 45 runs in the last ten.

Still, I did believe that 271 would be enough – in major games like these it's always tough to chase big totals. But Sehwag got them off to a flier – not for the first time and certainly not for the last either – and the lad Yuvraj batted well at the end of the innings, when our inexperience started to show a little. There's no doubt we missed Darren Gough, although James Kirtley did a fine job with those death deliveries.

Ronnie [Irani] also bowled well, and picked up the big wicket, but even he would accept that the middle of the innings is the easiest time to bowl. I wouldn't want to take away from his figures, but I was pleased with all our guys today, batters and bowlers alike. We had a bad five-over spell between overs 37 and 42 when we lost momentum and wickets, myself included, but other than that we did well throughout. But I guess it's the same scenario I've been talking about in the Tests. In those matches we have to keep playing well for five days, here we had to play well for the full 100 overs. Let your concentration slip, and you pay the price.

I was happy with my innings today, but I was disappointed to get out when I did. I saw the bowler as a guy to use my feet to, and try to nurdle the ball around, but he slipped in a quicker one and that was that. But I've been in good form in one-day cricket this season, and over the last few months in internationals.

Freddie Flintoff made an earlier appearance today, but where Freddie is concerned, it's not so much about batting order than about overs gone and overs remaining. I don't want to say too much about the strategy, but it'll become apparent as the games progress. There will always be a specific time for him to make an entrance, and today it was at the mid-innings, with us two-down and going well.

There was an annoying little break in play in the middle of India's innings, when I posted Ronnie at leg slip for Flintoff, only to be told by umpire Bucknor that he had to be inside the 15-metre ring. Umpire Mallender, fortunately, knew the ruling – if you have a fielder in a slip position then you can put them as deep as you like. It's common sense. If Shoaib Akhtar was coming at you – and Freddie is bloody sharp, believe me – then you'd have your slips at least 25 metres back. It could be dangerous otherwise.

We have to put this defeat out of our minds now and take the positives ahead to the next big game on Tuesday. And there are a lot of positives. OK, so a few catches went down, but the ones we held were blinding. We have come on in leaps and bounds in all departments since last year. I'm very pleased with where we're at.

Nasser Hussain was talking to Andrew Miller. 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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