Gough pays for profligacy

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Rain thwarts India after Tendulkar cuts loose

England's most crucial weakness was again exposed on Durham's brilliant Riverside ground. India were 221 for 4 in the 35th over when Yuvraj Singh, the find of the tournament, came out to join Sachin Tendulkar. By the end of the innings they had put on 64 runs from 33 balls and England are no nearer to finding one bowler, let alone two, who can bowl with security at the death.

This time the task was entrusted to Darren Gough, who had earlier picked up two wickets, including one with the first ball of the innings. He went for 23 runs in his last two overs. James Kirtley, bowling the penultimate over, went for 12.

Before that, Paul Collingwood had bowled his last two overs for 25. He served up just the medium-paced stuff which had Yuvraj and Tendulkar licking their lips in anticipation.

In the last few years Andrew Caddick, who is unfit, did a good job in the closing overs, while Ian Austin and Mark Ealham have also made a fist of this difficult job. The only two in this side capable of the same are Ronnie Irani and Andrew Flintoff, but they are needed early on.

Until England can come up with at least one bowler who can fulfil this difficult role, their chances in competition against the best one-day sides will not be good. It is no good restricting the opposition to 179 for 3 from 40 overs and letting them finish with 285 from 4 from 50.

It is amazing that the selectors keep ignoring Alex Tudor, for it needs no great stretch of the imagination to see him doing a worthwhile job at this difficult stage of the game. It might, too, be worth bringing back Lancashire's Glenn Chapple who knows a thing or two about keeping batsmen quiet. Going on as England are at the moment is only to invite disaster at the World Cup next February.

In the clatter and general cacophony of strokes at the end, one stood out. The first ball of Gough's last over was bowled on a length at the line of the middle stump. Yuvraj drove it with more than a little bottom hand wide of and over Flintoff at long off for six. It was a prodigious stroke.