At the end of the 38th over of this huge World Cup match in Indore, with India 218-3 chasing 288, Andrew Miller on Cricinfo’s live text wrote:

England are dying a death by a thousand cuts right now

(As an aside, I can exclusively(!) confirm that Miller is a bit of a Swiftie, so this was a reference to Taylor Swift’s song Death By A Thousand Cuts.)

Our WinHer Win Predictor agreed with Miller – at 40 overs, it had India on 87% likelihood of the win, with Deepti Sharma and Smriti Mandhana looking very much in control of what would have been India’s highest successful chase in ODIs.

But in the end it was India who died the death by a thousand cuts, as England’s death bowling and especially their fielding kept the pressure on India, who lost both their set batters to catches in the deep as they tried to play the big shots they were starting to need. Ultimately, Deepti’s methodical batting – scoring 50 off 57 balls – was both what kept India in the game until the final over; but ironically also what left Amanjot and Sneh Rana with too much to do in the last 18 balls.

It is a story which will be familiar to anyone who followed our coverage of the English domestic One Day Cup semi-finals. We saw two big, long, drawn-out chases, but the successful one was the one where Hampshire kept the Rate just above the Required Rate.

In the unsuccessful one – Blaze v Lancashire – Blaze stayed close and looked in touch, but the Rate was always below the Required Rate, and just like India today, it left them with too much to do at the death.

The bottom line is that if you don’t bat at over the rate, you are relying on the other team to eff it up at the death, but whilst there is undoubtedly pressure on both sides, especially with semi-final qualification on the line, the bowlers have an advantage over the batters – the batters can afford no mistakes. Deepti Sharma doesn’t quite get hold of a slog-sweep off Ecclestone, and she’s walking back to the dugout. In contrast, Lauren Bell can bowl a terrible full toss which is hit for 4 to Sneh Rana off the first ball of the penultimate over, but come back to keep India to just 5 further runs off the over, and leave Linsey Smith a defendable 14 off the last.

Linsey Smith bowled out that final over for 9 (of which 4 were from the final ball, which was moot by that point) to conclude another fantastic performance. Don’t look too hard at the wickets column for her today – an economy rate of 4 off 10 overs is worth far more than the 1 wicket.

Earlier, England’s batters had notched-up 288 in pretty much the way you’d have predicted if you’d watched any of their previous outings at this World Cup. Heather Knight and Nat Sciver-Brunt looked good; everyone else looked wobbly, including Amy Jones, who nonetheless did manage to hit her highest ODI score since her back-to-back 100s against West Indies last summer.

It was Heather Knight though who did the hard yards for England on the day she won her 300th cap for her country. It feels slightly surprising that this was only her sixth hundred in all that time. (Tammy Beaumont has scored 14 centuries in nearly 50 fewer matches.) It was a brave and battling innings, which showed she retains the steel backbone that kept her in the captaincy for almost 10 years.

Yesterday, Charlotte Edwards told the press that she was “not concerned” about England’s batting. Edwards is always consciously playing a role in these media situations, so it almost feels unfair to quote her quite so badly, but it is pretty clear once again that she should be concerned. Even if England go on to win this World Cup – and they are now just two wins away from doing so – we have seen that they remain totally dependent on a couple of aging old soldiers in Knight and Sciver-Brunt, for whom this tournament is undoubtedly starting to feel long and relentless. How long they can keep it up, remains to be seen.

The result means that England have qualified for the semis, despite looking pretty mediocre. India meanwhile still have their destiny in their own hands – win their remaining two matches, and they will definitely still qualify. They’ve got New Zealand next, who are in the exact same boat – it isn’t quite a virtual quarter-final, because they’ll each have one more still to play and the hope that the other will slip-up; but it is set to be the the key match now prior to the knockouts. My advice? Beg, borrow or steal a television on Thursday to see how it unfolds.