England’s one-day team may not have the blemish-free record their Test counterparts managed over India, after Sunday’s NatWest Series match was tied under Duckworth-Lewis, but they will be able to sign off the summer with another winning series. The match see-sawed one way then the other, after India produced their most competitive total of the series (280) and Ravi Bopara his most significant one-day innings for England, a fine 96 off 111 balls.

With 15 runs required off two overs, after two rain breaks had alerted both sides to the spectre of D/L, Bopara and Graeme Swann looked like having the outcome under control with their partnership of 50 off 38 balls. But when they fell to Munaf Patel off the fourth and fifth balls of the penultimate over, a double strike that also caused the heavens to open, the result fell to calculus not cricketers, and the match was tied.

The result leaves the series score at 2-0, after England wins followed the no result in the opener at Durham. Both wickets had an element of misfortune about them from England’s point of view. Running a quick single after Patel had rapped him on the pads, Swann contributed to his own downfall by inadvertently kicking the ball into Patel’s path. The bowler still needed to hit the stumps but as accuracy is his forte, he did not miss.