Being 25-3 or whatever India were is pretty much like being 25-1 five or ten years ago, such is the depth of batting in many ODI teams now. India won with 4 wickets in hand but still had Ashwin to come, a guy with 4 Test centuries to his name. OK, he's not as good with the bat in white ball cricket but it's still shows you that losing early wickets isn't disastrous when you bat so deep.
The same goes for England. Willey was in right down the order, this is a guy who clubbed 100 last summer in the T20 blast (postage stamp ground or not). Teams have one or two specialist quicks and the rest are batsmen and all-rounders. England's total was good but obviously 50 odd short. When 400 is needed to win a game you see how much it's a batsman's game in this format. It's exciting to watch, don't get me wrong, but the numbers are a little crazy to me.
The holy grail in ODI cricket would be to score 500 and if a team is going to do it it will be India on a pitch like today. Someone will need to get 200 and be helped significantly by the rest of the team but I think it will happen one day and I think this Indian team just might do it in the next year or two.
