Injury and inflexibility worries for Hussain

Nasser Hussain's final words at the post-Test match conference were: "I'll be driving home thinking about how we lost this Test match and how we go about winning the next one.''

It is the England captain's ability to dissect and analyse performances that puts him apart from the most recent England captains with a possible exception of Mike Brearley.

Brearley was followed by some good motivators, good tacticians, most of whom were exceptional performers: Botham, Willis, Gower, Gatting, Atherton, Stewart, all come into one or more of these categories and yet none, in memory, seem to have Nasser's capacity to see both the overall pattern of the match and be able to identify the critical points and crucial performances.

The captain's serious concerns today are the injuries to the all-rounders Andrew Flintoff and Craig White. Nasser, too, is worried about England's bowlers and their seeming inability to change their techniques to the requirements of different pitches and varying conditions: "I have to ask myself: 'Is it the field I set? Or is it that we have so drilled them that they find it hard to adjust?''' Turning to the final and vital Test at The Oval he predicted: "India will be under severe pressure. They will have a few butterflies in the stomach.''

India's captain, Sourav Ganguly, smiled: "India are under terrific pressure to win at home. Now we are under severe pressure to win abroad. That's good. India need pressure.'' He praised Rahul Dravid, man of the match, saying: "He is one of the great batsmen of modern cricket.''

The crowd was excellent, making nonsense of the suggestion that the Yorkies had lost their sense of thrift. There were more yesterday than on Sunday when the match still had some relevance. Many were Indian supporters, some of third or fourth generation. We Brits are not as successful as the Americans in persuading immigrants to transfer their loyalties. Integrationists can take heart: One man left the ground wearing a top emblazoned "India'' and a cap bearing the white rose.