Small scores are still better - India agree

At least India agree with us today, because they won a low-scoring match. West Indies bowled India out for 189, but India defended it. We were only watching the scorecard and it was nailbiting. Low scores are better. Every run counts.

In hindsight, Dinesh Karthik and Ajit Agarkar's partnership was crucial. India were 90-7 when they came together and you don't win many games from that position. However, Karthik hit 63 and Agarkar a more than handy 40.

In reply, Shiv was the only West Indian batsman to offer resistance with 66. Everyone's favourite uncool spinner, Ramesh Powar took 3-42 for India. He's always worth a mention. In fact, let's make him the accompanying picture.

Being uncool is the new cool. At least that's what our girlfriend tells us.

Dinesh Karthik and Wasim Jaffer show the way

The start of this Test was dominated by swing bowling. The feeling that England's batsmen had rather meekly submitted was born out by the performances of Dinesh Karthik and Wasim Jaffer.

Never mind that Tendulkar and Ganguly outscored both of India's openers, that first partnership was key. This was when England's bowlers were bowling at their best, but with each delivery that went by, the pair were making life easier for the middle order.

Tendulkar and Ganguly both batted well, but Dinesh Karthik and Wasim Jaffer gave them the best opportunity to do so.

Karthik's not a batsman we know all that well (we've heard he's a superior wicketkeeper to Dhoni, which is handy) but Jaffer's an opener of some talent. He's been in and out of the side with clockwork regularity and we still fear for him.

A good old-fashioned blunting the new ball innings of 62 here will soon become just an innings of 62 shorn of context. Some other opener will thrash a one-day hundred against Zimbabwe and steal his place.

We know this post's dry and humourless. It's Monday morning. We're just getting our eye in. We don't want to be making any loose jokes outside off-stump when we're still vulnerable to the moving

Dinesh Karthik hits a six-and-a-half

No, they're not doing nines yet. It's just rhetoric. There, that saved a few of you having to comment, didn't it?

We've heard a lot about Karthik's middle-order stroke-playing credentials, but we hadn't seen much evidence until yesterday. He's seemed like a classic, blunter of an opener so far this series - a good one, at that.

But at one point yesterday, he backed round a Monty Panesar delivery that pitched on leg and lifted it into the off-side over extra cover for six. It was a special shot.

In the end, he seemed a bit unlucky to be given out for 91. However, that was nothing compared to Sourav Ganguly's dismissal - lbw despite a huge inside edge.

Ganguly's always been a combative character. It's both his most and least admirable characteristic, paradoxically. With that in mind, the Prince of Calcutta (shouldn't that be Kolkata now?) deserves some sort of International Good Humour award for the smiling demonstration he gave as he left the field.

To return to Karthik, we're pretty sure we heard Sunil Gavaskar saying that he'd changed the spelling of his surname to 'Kaarthik', but we're not writing that until someone else does. Apparently, a numerologist told him he'd be more successful with an extra 'a'. Our name's chock full of 'a's - you won't catch us 'being successful'.

England v India, third Test at the Oval, day one
India 316 (Dinesh Karthik 91, Rahul Dravid 55)