Amanjot Kaur might have finished it off with consecutive 4s off Kate Cross; but it was the cool head of Deepti Sharma that won India the first ODI at The Sponsored Bowl in Southampton.

At the 30-over mark, India were behind the 8-ball – with 134 runs on the board, and 4 wickets down, our WinHer Win Predictor had India on just 23%; but in the space of 10 overs, Deepti and Jemimah Rodrigues had turned that around via the simple application of a strategy you might call: Not Doing Anything Stupid!

Over after over, they found a boundary and then ran the singles to keep the run rate under control without taking any additional risks. By the time we got to 40 overs, the Win Predictor had turned on its head: it was now England who were at 23%, with India on 77%.

Jemimah did eventually get herself out in the 42nd over, trying to ramp Lauren Filer – a strategy she’d used effectively against the England quick earlier in the tour. But on this occasion, she snatched at the shot and gloved a catch to Amy Jones. It gave England a glimmer of hope of pulling things back, but Deepti kept calm and carried on: boundary + singles; boundary + singles; as India worked their way to within striking distance of the target, before Amanjot did the rest.

It helped that the dimensions of the ground as it was laid-out today made singles easy to find, with huge square boundaries meaning almost anything that got through the ring was going to be a chase for the fielder and a jog through for the batters.

I’m not convinced England could have done much differently in terms of field settings – with the ring where it is in the women’s game, cutting off the singles inside it is a tall ask; and with only 4 fielders out, there will be some big spaces beyond it. I’m absolutely not calling for any of this to change, but it is a factor I think in making things harder than they look for the defending side in these situations.

Deepti finished 62* as India won with 10 balls remaining. It sounds close – or at least close-ish – but it really wasn’t, because India had been controlling the situation from that 30-over mark; and as long as Deepti remained at the crease, it was always going to be India’s game.

What Deepti’s contribution particularly showed was the importance of having a proper allrounder in the lineup – something England don’t have with Nat Sciver-Brunt not bowling at all.

When England were 4 down in a very similar situation, Sophia Dunkley and Alice Davidson-Richards knew they were the last line of defence; and consequently went into their shells a little in the Late Middle phase – scoring 46-0 where India later made 74-0, with genuine batting still to come, right down to Sneh Rana who was due in at 9.

Dunks and ADR no doubt did the right thing in just making sure they survived, and ADR showed why exactly why she had been selected ahead of Capsey or Bouchier, to offer a bit of backbone and a bit of smarts in the middle order. But it meant that even though England did accelerate in the final stretch – going at almost 10-an-over in the last 5 – they still finished a good 20-30 runs short of what might have been a winning total.

I’m not expecting any big changes from England for the now-crucial 2nd ODI at Lord’s this weekend – this is broadly the team they’ll be taking to the ODI World Cup, presumably with the addition of Heather Knight, who seems to have been included in the squad for this series in a slightly odd sort of “honorary” capacity, and was sat with Charlotte Edwards and her coaching staff on the balcony today. England have made their bed for the foreseeable; and they are lying in it. It doesn’t seem terribly comfortable though; and it could get a lot more uncomfortable quite soon.