Normal Service Is Resumed

England have lost a One-Day International to India. Forgive me if I don't get too excited or too downcast, but I simply can't manage to stir myself into any sort of emotional response to the news from the Champions Trophy.

It's good to see Flintoff back where he belongs and it looks as though England at least managed to avoid a complete thrashing.

But it's happened before and it will happen again. England simply aren't very good at one-day cricket.

And do I care? Well, not really. Sure, I'd like them to do better, but I won't lose any sleep over it (that's reserved for live coverage of Ashes Tests later in the winter).

Which may, as some have suggested, be part of the problem. Perhaps I exemplify the fact that people in England just don't care enough about one-day cricket. We prefer that strange, slow-burning, multi-dimensional form of the game called Test cricket. I think most of the players do too.

Lose a Test match, lose a Test series, lose the Ashes, and it hurts. Lose a prosaic, formulaic ODI and there'll be another stack along next year to lull everybody into ever greater extremes of ennui.

Bring on the Aussies (and I mean in Brisbane, not Jaipur).