A billion emphatic roars together could produce more noise than a nuke. A billion cold sighs could take us to the ice age again. Thankfully, none of that happened in one of the best matches ever in any World Cup, as India and England tied their encounter in Bangalore yesterday, thus ensuring we start the next day business as usual.

A match that England seemed to win easily during their chase, then almost dropped it with a quick panic and finally ended level with India. A match where Sachin uncharacteristically struck 5 sixes on his way to hundred and yet was over-shadowed by Strauss with his career-best knock. A match that should give England more relief and India more worries.

While the strength of the Indian batting was never in doubt, nobody would have expected their bowling to be so meek. None of two seam bowlers who played are such that they would arouse fear by their pace. The only one in the squad with some genuine pace leaks run faster than his bowling speed and rightfully found no place in the playing eleven yesterday. Nehra’s fitness is a perpetual enigma. While Zaheer continues to bowl well in the death overs like he did yesterday, his bowling up-front continues to be unexciting and costly. Harbhajan’s reputation as a strike bowler is at stake already and he seems to be making no improvements there. Piyush Chawla, back into the team after a long hiatus, was trying his best to get hit by Strauss and Co. We were never regarded for our pace bowling and soon we will not be known for our spin competency either.

Having said that, these players including Munaf, have enough experience between them to turn things around. The first 2 encounters have perhaps given them enough insights into their improvement areas, so it is up to them to ensure that we are either able to defend reasonably large totals, or restrict the opposition to a number that our formidable batting will be able to chase down without breaking too much sweat. Unless they do that, India are likely to find their WC campaign far more difficult than what was envisaged.