By Rob Bonnet BBC Sport

OK. I was wrong. One-day cricket is not inferior or damaging to Test cricket - it is just different. Wildly and excitingly different.

I have been converted and you will not hear me disparaging the 50-over version as slash-and-slog in pyjamas ever again.

True, the purists will say limited overs batting is too much like baseball's blast or block and that bowling sacrifices wicket-taking on the altar of run-restriction.

But, after that triangular series final at Lord's, you are not telling me that it lacks skill, or strategy or drama. And they pretty much sound like key components of any sport to me.

In any case, one-day cricket far more accurately mirrors the form of game played on club grounds and village greens around the country.

India had plenty to celebrate at Lord's

And the closer the amateur game resembles the professional, then it is more likely that the young club player will eventually develop into the middle-aged spectator of the first class game.

And that is investing for the future.

The commentators were calling the superlatives as India closed in on England's massive total at Lord's.

"A fantastic occasion" said the BBC's Mike Selvey.

"One of the greatest one-day matches ever played", said former England captain Bob Willis.

Well, that is an extravagant claim even by the hyperbolic standards of Sky Sports, but it certainly caught the mood as the two sides amassed 651 runs between them.

No one-day international in the UK has produced more runs and few have produced such an exciting finish as the game swayed this way and that right down to the final over.

But under the evening sunshine, the thousands of Indian fans celebrating their side's win produced exactly what the game needed - a reminder that cricket can be as vibrant and passionate as anything offered by football.

And as cricket fights for its commercial life it is well worth registering now that football is threatening to spread that little bit further into the summer months with its proposed mid-winter break.

Fletcher is right to pursue more one-dayers

True, the biggest handicap cricket's marketeers have in this country is the weather that rains on matches in the day and leaves dew on the ground by early evening.

So, the convenience and spectacle of day-night cricket which has proved so attractive in Australia, South Africa and the Indian sub-continent can never be a reliable vehicle for the game's image here.

Nevertheless, it is right that the counties persevere with those late starts, even if it means fans peering out from inside the hoods of their anoraks from time to time.

And beyond that next season comes the 20-over slog.

Again, Test cricket it most certainly ain't, but if it gets young fans into the grounds and then back onto the playing fields, then so much the better.

So coach Duncan Fletcher and captain Nasser Hussain are right to give the 50-over version parity with Test cricket, especially with the World Cup just around the corner.

Let's hope they win it. The game, if not England's ODI record, got a hefty nudge in the right direction at Lord's on Saturday evening, but an England triumph in South Africa would be the ultimate boost.