After much discussion, we decided to watch the darn game between India and Pakistan. I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have just taken the easy way out and slept through the night.

No. Not that easy. Kept alarm for 1am and went to the house where we planned to see the match, at 1.45am. And the damn rains in England made the start delayed by 15 minutes.

India went in with Rohan Gavaskar as the 7th batsman and Dravid keeping. Pakistan won the toss and fielded.

In no time, because of rank bad shots, India was 28-3! Ganguly was the one to be blamed the most, because of the pathetic shot he played. Crap. Absolutley crap. He should be disciplined, unless he gives an explanation. Sehwag needs to be dropped just because he’s been given too many chances. Laxman would also be dropped, but he was on the only one to middle the ball, but that is the case with him all the time. He never looks shady, but he gets out to a poor shot all the time. And quite early in his innings. That is unacceptable. He needs Sandy the psychologist quickly!

Kaif and Dravid set up a small partnership, but then Kaif left. And in three balls, the woefully out-of-form Yuvi left too. For a duck. Another person to be dropped - never mind the sensational catch he took at point later on.

Then Dravid and Rohan had another decent partnership before Rohan left. Three dismissals fishing outside the off stump (Kaif, Yuvi and Rohan). And Agarkar came to the crease.

And what a revelation! Agarkar smashed the ball around and had a good time and ultimately, made 200 possible. Just.

So Pakistan had a seemimgly easy task of making 201 to win. But nothing is simple in India/Pakistan games and this game was no different. Pathan struck twice in two overs and Pakistan was reeling. At the end of his spell, Pathan had 3 wickets for 11 runs in 7 overs. And India was right back in it.

The problem? The other end. There was just not enough backing up for Pathan and the most experienced pair of Inzamam and Youhana settled down and started collecting the runs in a professional manner. It feels funny to say that for Pakistan, but it was true. No undue risks, and keeping the run rate up with singles and twos.

And then, despite a mini-collapse, Pakistan, with Youhana leading the way, was never in doubt of the victory and got it.

So India is out and will be back home now. Time to start thinking about what went wrong and seriously trying to correct it. Also, we need to quickly get into the test match frame of mind, because Australia is going to give everything they have to win the series coming up.

I am going to go back to the ‘India is not consistent’ mentality that I had a year or so ago. We need Sachin Tendulkar back at 100% and some guys to return to form. Ganguly needs to be a little more scientific and a little less intuition-based. And of course, we need to perform 100% as a team.

Only then we can hope to make it 2-2 vs Australia.