Uthappa puts India at 3-3

Ultimately two Uthappa boudaries proved to be more powerful than Mascarenha's five sixes, Boy! the young lad kept his cool even as wickets kept falling on the other side - and when he finally added some chutzpah to the cool, he got too hot for the English bowlers to control. Absolutely brilliant!

316 runs is a lot of runs; only a few days back Ravi Shastri had commented how the 15-20 runs scored beyond the 300 often become the most important in the final analysis. They almost did today until Uthappa joined the party at about the perfect time for Team India.

Of course, things would have never got that close without the strong foundation provided by the opening pair of Sachin Tendulkar-Saurav Ganguly. Today's was their 20th hundred run partnership - the 150 runs put up by the duo insured India against the quick loss of wickets which happened once Sachin fell. Both the veterans were batting at their best with Tendulkar especially being in sublime touch. The little master's suprising recent run of failures to get into the triple figure mark has only meant him touching another record - Sachin is now tied with Inzamam at 84 fifties, the highest in ODI cricket.

This victory will spark remarks about the usefulness of the 7th batsmen. Ganguly supporters will remind all and sundry how the 7-batsmen theory had been so succesfully employed by the former captain, and how he was proved right again today. While i'm not against 7 batsmen, it cannot be at the expense of a 5th bowler. Supporters of the 7-4 theory only need to look at the carnage that happened in the final over of the England innings. Had a regular 5th bowler been around, Uthappa's wonderful efforts may not have been required in the first place.