 | They had a chance to come in and shine and grabbed it with both hands |
Paul Collingwood hailed Ravi Bopara and Stuart Broad as "the future of English cricket" after they combined to lead the hosts to victory over India. The young pair shared an unbeaten stand of 99 to see off the tourists by three wickets with 12 balls to spare, after Broad had taken 4-51 with the ball.
And skipper Collingwood said: "For those two to come in and win the match for us is unbelievable - brilliant.
"They had a chance to come in and shine and grabbed it with both hands."
The win means England lead the seven-match series 3-1 and Collingwood added: "It was an amazing game really, swinging one way and then the other.
"We were disappointed to be seven down with so few runs on the board, and after so few overs, but that we can come back from that and still win is a fantastic achievement."
Broad, whose 4-51 was his best figures in one-day cricket for England, earned the man-of-the-match award for his all-round effort, with his father - ex-England opener Chris - watching from the stands.
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Broad said: "That was my most important innings ever. We had bowled brilliantly to restrict them to 212 but myself and Ravi came together at a difficult time at seven down with 99 to get.
"Ravi batted brilliantly, keeping me going, and it was nice that we stuck together to the end and I was able to knock off the winning runs.
"My dad will have been chewing his nails off I'm sure, but it's great that he and the rest of the family were here to watch it."
Essex all-rounder Bopara added: "I kept thinking back to the World Cup when Paul Nixon and I took us so close to victory over Sri Lanka and we just fell short.
| It's very disappointing but you have to give credit to the two boys, they played beautifully |
"It was good to have experienced that kind of chase before, but just needed to knock it around this time around and build the innings 10 runs by 10 runs. It's a great feeling to have done it."
India captain Rahul Dravid conceded his side were probably 25 runs short of a decent total as they left themselves needing to win the final three matches to take the seven-match series.
"It's very disappointing but you have to give credit to the two boys, they played beautifully. We needed a wicket but credit to them, they played well," he said.
"We tried to keep getting wickets, we tried to change it round but to be fair they didn't give us a chance. Probably we were 25 runs light to start off with.
"I thought we bowled well today. It was just that one wicket at that stage that we didn't get."
Interview: England's Stuart Broad
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