London, Sept 10: Although India lost the third ODI at The Oval, the team would take heart from a much improved performance in what turned out to be a tense match.

Floundering at 58 runs for the loss of five wickets, the visitors fought back to set England a target of 235 runs - a target revised to 218 after a rain interruption. Later, spinners R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja claimed five wickets between them and took the game to the last over.

Former cricketer and commentator, Ravi Shastri analysed the match in an exclusive interview with www.bcci.tv.

Excerpts:

On the disastrous start by India

Yes, at one stage it looked like as if they were down and out and it [looked like] it could finish even before the lights came on but good rearguard action [from India]. It was a very good toss to win for England and it was a kind of pitch that would have tested anyone early on and [James] Anderson bowled superbly.

On Ravindra Jadeja’s all-round performance

Terrific! For someone just off a flight, not even for 24 hours in the UK, he was brilliant. [He showed] great composure [and he has] obviously worked on his technique because he looked very organised and calm at the crease and in fact in many ways took the pressure off Mahindra Singh Dhoni. Even his bowling was outstanding because in these conditions, especially, for someone to just come off a flight and adjust quickly was very commendable and he rightly deserved the Man-of-the-Match because without him there would have been no match.

On Craig Kieswetter who has been consistently giving England good starts

Dangerous player; I think he’s been asked to play in that fashion. He’s been given the license to take risks early on. He is not scared of failure […] India had to take wickets with the new ball and what he did was just upset the rhythm [of the bowlers] by being a little unorthodox.

On what India can do differently at Lord’s to be able to register their first win of the series

Batting, [the] top-order has to fire; they need the runs on the board. That’s their strength and they need big runs because their weakness is in the field though the fielding was much better [in the third ODI]. I still feel they need some venom in the [bowling] attack. They need to get Varun Aaron into the attack just to see how he is because he is supposed to be the quickest in the side. So if you’ve got a youngster who is 21, who is quick, unleash him. You have nothing to lose now you can’t win this one-day series. All you can do is draw it.