By Oliver Brett BBC Sport Online

All three teams knew that the NatWest Series would give some very real indications about their progress towards claiming world cricket's holy grail.

With the countdown well and truly underway for the World Cup, teams are fast running out of opportunities to try out new players or tweak with batting orders.

But while Sri Lanka flew back to Colombo with their tails well and truly between their legs, India could bask in the knowledge that their batting line-up is arguably the strongest in the world.

When the three best one-day sides - Australia, South Africa and Pakistan - put together sequences of one-day wins, very often their bowlers win their fair share of matches.

India, however, know that their cocktail of left-arm seam and dual-pronged spin is strictly speaking a limiting device.

It's a bit like the gadget on a bus that stops the vehicle going over a certain speed. And as long as the other team's batters are not going too crazy, all can still be all right on the night.

Bookmakers generally feel that if anyone is going to prevent an Australia-South Africa final, it can only be Pakistan.

But if the groundsmen in South Africa produce the same pearling pitches that we have seen in England, Sourav Ganguly's men are not going to be pushovers.

England went into the final with an even record in the three matches played against India - having won one, drawn one, and seen one match rained off.

And if one of their top three seamers had not suffered stage fright on the big occasion, they would surely have won the final by a street.

All of which is reasonably encouraging for a team who, as a one-day unit, were a bit of an international laughing-stock 12 months ago.

Collingwood issue

They still need to work out if Paul Collingwood is part of the long-term set-up.

He bats too low down and bowls too late on for him to be anything more than a bits-and-pieces player - and they are very unfashionable these days.

With Graham Thorpe no longer wishing to have a one-day future, there is no doubt that the lack of raw experience in their ranks could cost them dear.

But at least they have taken on board the fact that the modern one-day game is not simply Test cricket played at a faster pace.

Sri Lanka struggled badly without Muttiah Muralitharan - their back-up spinners were desperately ineffective.